David Hanson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to tell him that, as I am sure he knows, Buckley Hall prison is a very high performing prison, and is currently a level 3 prison, so the changes to date have, in fact, improved performance. He will also know that the contract for that prison is coming to an end and that, in the light of the Justice Secretary's statement of 27 April, we will be putting the contract out to competition again. Both the public and the private sector—and, indeed, the voluntary sector—can compete for that contract, and I have no doubt that we will ultimately choose whoever can provide the best service to continue the good work that has been done to date at Buckley Hall prison.

David Hanson: My hon. Friend will know that at present about 10 per cent. of the estate is private prison-orientated and 90 per cent. is in the public sector. Let us look at what the Labour Government have done to date. In the last 12 years, we have commissioned and built RAF Coltishall in Norfolk, which will be opening shortly as a public sector prison, and we have also opened HMP Kennet in Maghull on Merseyside as a public sector prison. What we said in our 27 April announcement is that the next two 1,500-capacity prisons to be built will be private sector institutions, but that we are not averse to the public sector being considered after that, because there is a need for an appropriate mix. The public sector does a good job, and the private sector can do a good job. too; what we are interested in is the cost and efficiency of the prison service, and I believe that both sectors have their role to play. My hon. Friend will know, however, that the public sector overwhelmingly remains the major provider of prison services in England and Wales, and will continue to be so.

Humfrey Malins: But does the Minister accept that re-offending rates are frighteningly high in both privatised prisons and public sector prisons? When he listens to further representations about prisons, will he concentrate his mind very much on what kind of prison provides the best resettlement programmes, enabling people leaving prison—who are often youngsters—to go into a home and a job and back into the community with a proper resettlement programme, as that is the best way to stop re-offending?

David Hanson: The hon. Gentleman makes extremely valid points. He will know that what happens in prison and how we re-enter people into society when they leave prison are the two key determinants as to whether re-offending behaviour occurs. I am deeply committed to trying to develop regimes in private and public sector prisons that achieve maximum outputs for both. To do that, we must not just look at prisons in isolation, but also look at them as transitional places from where people return to the community. That is why the hon. Gentleman's points about housing, employment and skills development are the key issues that we need to continue to work on. I believe we have been doing some good work to date, but there is always more to do, and I hope we can focus on that, regardless of who happens to run the prisons in the future.

Edward Garnier: The small print in this year's Budget Red Book announced that
	"all new-build prisons will be built and managed by the private sector".
	Despite the fact that several prisons, including HMP Garth in Lancashire, are now working to rule, and that industrial action may reoccur this summer over this and other proposals, can the Minister reassure the House that this policy has the wholehearted and unanimous support of his parliamentary party?

Russell Brown: Of course I share the concerns raised about fraud by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). However, the issue of under-registration is worrying, too. All too often, those who need their voices to be heard fail to register, thereby disfranchising themselves from the electoral and democratic process. How confident is my hon. Friend the Minister that what we propose in the current legislation will ensure that those who need their voices to be heard will be registered?

David Taylor: Suicide and self-harm, psychotic and neurotic activity, drug and alcohol dependency, and serious personality disorders are all at significantly higher levels among prisoners than in the general population. How confident is the Minister that the most seriously ill prisoners are in an appropriate setting for treatment and that they should not be admitted to the nearest acute mental hospital?

Nicholas Winterton: The Minister is just beginning to get to the point. Is there not a real problem that many people with mental illnesses who commit crimes are sent to prison when they should not be sent there at all, because of the absence in hospitals of adequate facilities—particularly beds—to deal with those with mental illness? Will the Minister address the fact that too many people are being sent to prison because of the absence of adequate mental facilities in the community?

Jack Straw: We will never compromise prison security for any wider consideration. A number of National Audit Office reports have made it clear that the introduction of a very limited section of the private sector has helped to raise standards in the public sector. That may be an unfortunate conclusion, but it happens to be true.
	As to the future, apart from the two entirely new prisons that will be built in the private sector, as I announced last week, all those that are being re-competed—the five so-called strategic level arrangement prisons that have been re-competed, one that came back to the private sector and the two new ones, Birmingham and Wellingborough—will have the opportunity through the public sector to compete against private and third sector arrangements. If they are successful, they will keep the contracts.

Jack Straw: I do indeed remember article 9, although I was not here to witness its coming into force— [ Interruption. ] It was marginally before my time.  [ Interruption. ] If I could have less levity from my ministerial colleagues, that would be helpful. Of course I understand my hon. Friend's point. This has been a subject of considerable interest in the context of bribery and whether there should be application to Members of Parliament, which it is generally felt there should be. If he looks at our Green Paper on a Bill of rights and responsibilities, he will see that there is a good discussion of article 9 and the privileges of Parliament.

Sale of Mobile Homes (Interviews)

Annette Brooke: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the holding of interviews between site owners and prospective purchasers of mobile homes prior to any sale.
	Along with the sponsors of the Bill, I am a member of the all-party group for the welfare of park home owners. The meetings of that group are extremely well attended by Members of Parliament, peers, representatives of park home site owners, representatives of residents and others. There is great will among all of them to ensure that vulnerable residents are protected, to enhance the status and reputation of the whole sector by finding ways to address bad practices, and to get the right balance between business sustainability for site owners and the needs of residents. Park homes provide a useful addition to the supply of housing and would have even greater potential if we could improve that balance.
	First, I emphasise that the points that I shall make are directed at a minority of park home site owners. There are excellent, well managed park home sites in my constituency, and I do not wish to suggest that all site owners engage in bad practices. That is far from the case. However, there is one particular site in my constituency, the Silent Woman park near Wareham, where residents have had cause to raise many issues with me over the years. It is in an idyllic setting and residents should be able to live there without constant worries.
	The Bill would prevent unjustified interference by a site owner when residents sell their park home. A park home site owner might quite reasonably wish to meet a prospective buyer or at least have some references supplied, but an interview without the seller or an independent witness present can provide opportunities for rogue site owners to make misleading or untrue statements. Examples of such statements from across the country include: "The home is in poor condition"; "The home is not worth the price you're paying"; "The home will have to be moved to another pitch next year"; "I have a right to ask the court to let me take the home off in five years"; and "The park is being developed and the home will have to be moved." Alternatively, the prospective buyer might simply be intimidated by real or implied threats and not want to be involved with the site owner in any way. The prospective buyer might understandably decide that he or she does not want to live on a park run in such a way, and/or by such an unpleasant person, and the sale will fall through. After that has been repeated a few times, the seller eventually sells the home to the park owner for a token sum.
	In each case there are no witnesses and the prospective buyer is usually unwilling to give a witness statement. He or she simply wants to get away from the park. The seller does not usually go to court because there is no witness statement and the buyer is lost anyway. The incentive for the park owner is to buy the home for a small sum, remove it from the park, site a new and possibly bigger home on the pitch and sell it, thereby making a clear profit of perhaps £100,000. Rogue site owners currently have the ability to sabotage sales and can rely on the fact that many people who move to park homes are frail, vulnerable, elderly and easily intimidated. It seems perfectly reasonable for a site owner to be able to check out a prospective buyer, but how can we stop the abuse and possible fraud currently taking place? My Bill suggests that there should be an independent witness present at such meetings.
	I would like to illustrate that further with a case from my constituency. The site owner wrote to my constituent on 4 October 2007 saying:
	"Thank you for your letter...introducing the above young lady to me and seeking my approval for her to buy the above home.
	Since taking over the park in 1999 we have always promoted the location as a retirement one for people over the age of 55. With that in mind I am unable to agree to"
	Ms X
	"purchasing your home and will not be endorsing her residency.
	I now serve formal notice on you to remove the home, extension and conservatory as the alterations you have made to the home to accommodate the extension and conservatory have rendered the home immobile. In fact it is my belief that the original home would collapse in the event of it being moved. This situation contravenes the Mobile Homes Act, is detrimental to my Park and can no longer be accepted.
	I have also engaged the services of"
	a specialist
	"in Mobile Homes to carry out an external survey of the home in order to verify my claim. My legal advisors have informed me that I do not need your permission for such a survey."
	A letter also dated 5 October 2007 was issued to all residents on the park saying:
	"Since taking over the Park in 1999 we have always promoted the location as a retirement one for people over the age of 55.
	My legal advisors have informed that this should be formalised within the Park Rules and I now write to advise you of the addition of the following rule."
	You have guessed it, Mr. Speaker:
	"The Park is for retired/semi retired persons over the age of 55."
	The letter continued:
	"In the event of anyone disagreeing with this rule please let me have your written objection within 28 days of the date of this letter."
	Representatives of the residents association on the site tell me that the prospective purchaser was originally prepared to make a statement about conversations with the site owner but, not surprisingly, she eventually decided to get clear of the whole situation. The residents believe that she was told that she had to be over 50, that the owner had the right to move the home, that if he did so it would fall apart, and that he would not be responsible for putting it back together again. She was also told that he wanted to replace it with another home that could be sold for £150,000-plus. If that was not the case, the site owner would also be protected under my proposal that an independent witness should be present during any meetings between a prospective purchaser and the site owner. That might be a solicitor, but the important point would be to have an independent witness—further consideration would obviously need to be given to communication by phone.
	My constituents were offered £81,000 by the prospective purchaser. An earlier offer made by the site owner was for £15,000. The issue of extensions generally has been considered by the local authority and, while requiring certain important provisions regarding fire safety, the council decided not to enforce the removal of extensions on resale. The site owner wanted the council to enforce such removals and indicated great displeasure to me after the council made its decision. There are a number of extensions on the site that technically breach the 6 m rule. They were allowed over many years by default, with no action from the local authority or the site owner. Many owners purchase their homes with the extensions already in place, and have no knowledge of any problems relating to them. The site ownership has been with the same family for many years.
	In this case, following the loss of a prospective purchaser, the owner tried to pursue a fraud case. There were enormous difficulties involved in getting the police to accept that this was not just a civil matter. The case was eventually taken up, but perhaps not in a wholehearted manner, and, in any event, it was not pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service. The all-party group on the welfare of park home owners recently had a useful meeting with the Minister responsible for policing. He was very responsive, and agreed to talk to the police about the need for existing legislation to be available to park home owners. Witnesses are needed, however, and on many occasions prospective buyers will just want to walk away and forget an unpleasant experience.
	The Bill is about prevention. I hope that hon. Members will support it and thus protect vulnerable people when they come to sell their precious homes, often when they are moving on into more supported accommodation. The Bill would also protect site owners against any untrue allegations. I am pleased to say that it commands the support of hon. Members from all the main political parties in this House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Ordered,
	That Annette Brooke, Richard Younger-Ross, Mr. Bill Olner, Mr. Gary Streeter, Andrew George, Natascha Engel, Mr. Richard Benyon, Mr. David Kidney and Sir John Butterfill present the Bill.
	Annette Brooke accordingly presented the Bill.
	 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 16 October and to be printed (Bill 92).

Consideration of Bill, as amended in the Public Bill Committee

David Burrowes: Taking the issue of "best endeavours" further, is it not the case that such endeavours will count only when the local authority has the budget to deliver ongoing support and education for a young offender in custody? Does the Minister welcome the Youth Justice Board's moves to provide full information on budgetary costs of the custody of young offenders in the home authority? Would not the next step be to look at devolving those custodial costs so that the home authority has sufficient budgets to be able to deliver when offenders are out of custody, in custody and after custody?

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Under the Bill, the budget currently held by the Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for education in custody at the moment, will be transferred to local authorities, and detailed guidance will be issued on how it will work in practice.
	Section 562C also requires the authority that was maintaining the statement to keep a copy of it while the person is detained. Clause 51, which amends part 4 of the Education Act 1996, makes provision for the child's statement of special educational needs that was maintained before the person's detention to be revived and reviewed on release. The new clause also strengthens requirements in relation to the transfer of information about a person's education so that that relevant parties can exchange relevant educational information to help to ensure that education and training in juvenile custody can be tailored to meet the person's needs.

Rob Marris: The provisions may well be in the new clauses, but it has been a particular problem with young people in secure estate that if they are moved, their educational records can take so long to catch up with them that they end up having to start all over again. If that happens twice—given that most of them have short sentences—they end up completing their sentence when they have had three first bites at the cherry but have never been able to complete a course, even though they would have had time to do so if the records had promptly followed them from one institution to another.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Information sharing is going to be particularly important. Because of the previous split in responsibility between the Ministry of Justice and local authorities, which applied before the young person went into custody and after, there was far more likelihood of what my hon. Friend referred to happening. We hope that under the new provisions, that process will be speeded up and will form part of the guidance that develops as we go forward. The guidance will include expectations of how LEAs should support the special educational needs of children and young people in juvenile custody and we will use the guidance to be clear on the respective roles of the different local authorities involved in order to assure clarity of roles and expectations.
	Concern has been expressed that all the needs of young people with special educational needs should be met while they are in custody, but it is necessary to be mindful of the significant constraints within the custodial environment and of the fact that, as I said earlier, young people generally spend only a short time in custody. It would be impractical to require local education authorities to have to commission specific provision to meet every need of every young person while they are in custody, because it would take time to commission that and be difficult within the context of delivering complex custodial regimes for an ever changing population. However, we consider the provisions in the Bill a significant step forward.
	Our requirements for and approach to education and training for children and young people in custody will result in real improvements and better outcomes. This is the first time that requirements for education in custody will be set out in primary legislation, which will allow us to be clear about roles and expectations in statutory guidance. It will mean clear duties on the young person's home local authority to maintain involvement in the person's education and training, which we believe will promote greater consistency in the young person's learning and the support that they receive to help them to engage, progress and achieve.
	With regard to young people with statements of special educational need, there are significant constraints to continuing SEN statements in custody, which outweigh the potential benefits. The SEN statement is a legally binding document that sets out the specific special educational provision that the young person must receive. The statement would be likely to include the name of the school the young person must attend and details of all the special educational provision the young person must receive. Therefore, if the statements were to be continued when a young person entered custody, the statement would have to be reviewed and reissued upon the child's entering the custodial establishment and again on the young person's release.
	As I said, the average time spent in custody for young people is three to four months, which means that by the time the SEN statement had been reviewed and appropriate provision commissioned and provided, the majority of young people would be leaving the secure estate and the SEN statement would need to be reviewed yet again.
	There are significant constraints on host LEAs being required to conduct SEN assessments for young people entering custody without a statement, if they consider an assessment might be needed. Again, that is because young people generally spend a short time in custody and may also move establishments mid-sentence, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris).

David Burrowes: Does the Minister share the concern about constraints for home authorities in relation to the increasing distance between the home authority and the locations in which young people are housed in custodial establishments? Will she consider how the Bill squares with the decision of the Youth Justice Board to remove contracts in relation to secure children's homes, which often house some of the most vulnerable young people? Indeed, in London, there will be no secure children's home; the nearest is in Southampton.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Again, information sharing between home and host local authorities will be really important. I still maintain that bringing the education system back under the local authority so that it, as a body, rather than the Ministry of Justice, bears the responsibility between a child entering and leaving custody, means that that continuity is much more likely to be able to be maintained.

David Burrowes: On the requirement for notification when a young person has been subject to a detention order, will the Minister confirm that also included in that are situations where a young person is on remand and is not subject to any sentence of detention or training?

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: It is my understanding that that applies whenever a young person is within the secure estate, but if that is not correct I am sure that someone will correct me before we conclude our proceedings today.
	I hope that Members will agree that the new clauses significantly strengthen requirements in respect of young people in juvenile custody—especially those with special educational needs—and that they provide a robust and practical framework to ensure that the needs of children and young people in juvenile custody can be appropriately supported.

Nick Gibb: There is an element of déjà vu to this debate. The Minister is moving precisely the same new clauses that she moved in Committee on 17 March. Her arguments are the same, too; in fact, many of the words and phrases she has used are very similar, albeit today she has sought to explain matters more expansively. In a few moments, I will raise with her some of the questions that we raised in Committee on the new clauses, and I do not doubt that the Minister will respond with the same, or similar, answers to those that she gave on 17 March.
	Why are we repeating a debate we had in Committee? Why is the Minister moving exactly the same new clauses that she argued for in Committee? She is doing so because the management of the Committee stage by the four Ministers charged with that responsibility was not handled with the deftness of touch that might have been expected; it was a case of too many Ministers spoiling the broth, and an example of the chaos that can occur on considering a joint Bill when there is no clear sense of who is responsible.
	The following is what happened in Committee. New clauses 14 and 15 were meant to replace clauses 49 and 50, which meant that the Government Members of the Committee should have voted against their own clauses in Committee, but instead they inadvertently voted for them. However, a very kind Chairman of the Committee realised the Minister's oversight and gave the Committee a second chance to vote; but, alas, those Members again voted the wrong way and voted for their own clauses. So, here we are repeating the Committee stage and voting on whether to undo the errors of wayward Ministers—we will have to do that again later this evening as the Government try to reverse three defeats incurred in Committee on three technical Government amendments. Those defeats were caused by the fact that a number of Labour Members failed to turn up in time for a 9 am start.
	On the substance of the new clauses, these are important provisions —[Interruption.] Well, we would not have to waste any of this time had this been handled properly in Committee.

Nick Gibb: My hon. Friend makes a good point; the deputy Chief Whip was present throughout the later stages of our discussions. I have seen him today, looming around the Palace, so I am pleased to say that he is not ill—no doubt, he will be joining us later.
	There is no doubt that education is key to the rehabilitation of young offenders and, indeed, of all prisoners in our jails. Statistics for 2007 reveal that nearly half of prisoners had a reading age of 11 or younger, 65 per cent. had maths skills below those of an 11-year-old and 82 per cent. had handwriting skills at or below those of an average 11-year-old. Action for Children, which is a voluntary sector provider of children's services, shares our concern about the quality of education for young people in custody, and it has stated:
	"Within the secure estate, education and training provision is patchy. There is a commitment of 30 hours per week of education and skills provision, but figures suggest that the average amount of time spent on education and training is much lower."
	I wish to raise with the Minister the concerns about the wording of these new clauses that some of my hon. Friends have touched on and that were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) in Committee. The first relates to proposed new subsection 562B(3) of the Education Act 1996, which new clause 14 would insert. Proposed new section 562B would introduce a duty on the home local authority of the young person in custody to ensure that both during the period of detention and on release it takes steps to promote that young person's educational potential. Subsection (3) would provide that the home authority must make arrangements for the provision of education or training for the young person when they are released, but includes the words
	"where it appears to the home authority appropriate for them to do so".
	I want the Minister to answer the following question. Given the importance of education to young offenders in ensuring that they do not continue on the road to a life of crime, when might it not be "appropriate" for that young person's home authority to make arrangements for the provision of education or training on that person's release from detention? Is not the danger that the phrasing will provide a get-out clause that will allow indolent local authorities not to bother?

Nick Gibb: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is an anachronistic phrase—if one is to believe the rhetoric of Labour Ministers.
	Our second concern relates to proposed new subsection 562C(3) of the 1996 Act, which new clause 14 would insert and which deals with young offenders who had a statement of special educational needs prior to going into custody. The provision says that the local authority where the young person is detained must use its "best endeavours" to secure special educational provision for that person while they are in custody. Again, it is the phrase "must use its best endeavours" that concerns us. Is not that another get-out clause for a local authority that does not want to incur the expense of ensuring that the youth custody facilities in its area provide that type of quality education?
	Our third and final concern also relates to the proposed new section 562C and concerns the definition of what is to be regarded as appropriate special educational provision. In new subsection 4(c) it says that if it appears to the host authority that the special educational provision specified in the statement is no longer appropriate for the young person in custody, the host authority can simply provide that element of special education that it deems appropriate. Given that the new section does not provide for a new statement or assessments to be made, that also appears to be a widely drafted get-out clause for local authorities that do not wish to provide high quality special education for young people in custody.
	Policy in relation to children with special educational needs has not been well handled over the last 10 or 20 years, and much needs to be done to right those wrongs. Indeed, one might be forgiven for making a connection between poor policy making, the Warnock conclusions about inclusion and the fact that we are now discussing educational provision for young people in custody with special educational needs. Given the strong correlation between poor educational achievement and prison, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that poor special education provision is having a similar consequence for some young people who have special educational needs.
	These are important issues and I hope that the Minister will address them appropriately. I wish her all the best with voting these new clauses and amendments on to the statute book without any hitches.

Annette Brooke: I, too, hope that our considerations today proceed smoothly and without a hitch. On the subject of these new clauses, it is really important to identify the roles of the home and host authorities. I believe that the Government basically have it right in their definitions of what the home authority should be doing and what the host authority should be doing. The difficulty, as all hon. Members acknowledge, is promoting liaison between those two authorities.
	It is important that the Government recognise clearly that a high proportion of young offenders have special educational needs and, perhaps unrelated to that but possibly related to it, that many young offenders have been excluded from school. Obviously, education is key in rehabilitation and in tackling reoffending. Equally, we are aware of the particularly high rate of reoffending among young people, which can be as high as 80 per cent. I cannot emphasise enough how important I think that the proposals are, but I am concerned about their implementation, as I have already said.
	I, too, share the concerns of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) that the proposed new section 562C offers some convenient opt-outs for local authorities that mean that they might not endeavour to take the required steps to promote a person's fulfilment and learning potential. Given the existence of those opt-outs, it is crucial that their use be tightly defined in guidance.
	I would also repeat the point I made earlier: it is important that an assessment is made for all young people if they come into the youth justice system. That must be put on the record. I do not think that it is happening now, so it does not reassure me to have in writing, "Well, that's all right because it is in such and such a plan." The Government must come up with some firm schemes for monitoring the whole system implied in the new clauses; otherwise, they will be totally worthless and we will not make progress on this important matter, on which I think that the Government would be proud to have success.

Kelvin Hopkins: I was not privileged to be a member of the Public Bill Committee, so I hope that what I say has not already been well debated before.
	The concern is about young people in custody with special educational needs. Is it not the case that had we intervened sooner, they might not be in custody? I have argued many times, in this House and elsewhere, that we ought to provide better for younger people who clearly have special educational needs, and to do so at an earlier stage. I have some knowledge of this subject from relatives who have been teachers. Local authorities have been reluctant to statement young people, because it costs money to do something about it. Even when those young people have been statemented, there is often a long delay before any action, during which time youngsters can fall more and more into trouble and difficulty. They might, perhaps, be excluded from school and then get into trouble. The end result is that they finish up in custody, with a criminal record or a custodial record and with a very poor educational experience.

Kelvin Hopkins: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I shall come on to make the point that there is always a resource implication for such actions. The resource constraint sometimes deters local authorities from doing things that they ought to do. I have had cases in my constituency of people who really should have been in residential educational care, or whatever one likes to call it, at an earlier stage in life. The local authority resists, usually arguing that it is better to have the principle of inclusion to the fore, when the reality is really about the cost. If central Government were prepared to fund local authorities to provide that very expensive special provision for certain young people, local authorities would be much more enthusiastic about pursuing that option. That is, of course, true of the clauses that we are discussing, too.
	I support the clauses in principle, but if local authorities find ways of not doing what the clauses imply because it is "not appropriate", it may be a resource constraint that is the problem. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), and the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon)to look seriously at making sure that local authorities have the resources to do what the clauses imply should be done.
	I have argued on many occasions that there ought to be more residential provision for those with certain sorts of special educational needs, and particularly for those with serious behavioural needs that are difficult to accommodate in school. The young people concerned have difficulty coping with school. I am not suggesting that every time anybody misbehaves, they should be sent off to a boarding school, but some people's behavioural difficulties are so serious that they really need a calmer experience in a residential setting, with specialist provision. I know that schools and colleges of that kind do exist. Some of them are private, and some are very expensive. If local authorities, in regional consortiums, made that sort of provision for those with special educational needs at an early stageif intervention were quick and earlyit would make an enormous difference to whether those people finished up in a custodial environment, and then went on to a criminal life, which would be wholly regrettable. Early intervention is absolutely crucial in such cases, as it is in the case of so many special educational needs. If we invested more in such special educational provision when people were very young, we would finish up with fewer people in custodial situations, and fewer people leading a life of crime.

Graham Stuart: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins). Uniquely, I found myself agreeing with almost everything that he said, particularly on early intervention. If one wants to look at the matter in purely financial terms, from the state's point of view, early intervention and investment in young people who are clearly coming off the rails, as they are when in custody, will pay back. It will pay back handsomely if we can provide the educational opportunity to allow at least a decent percentage of those young people to go on the straight and narrow, increase their confidence and so on.
	I also agree with what the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) said about the need for visibility on performance. We need transparency. Young people who go into custody often move between institutions. Sometimes they are moved far away from their home authority, and they are out of sight, out of mind. That is why the fact that the Government are today making an effort to improve the education of those young people is to be welcomed, but it is also why so many Members from all parts of the House have concerns about whether the measures that the Government are taking are strong enough.
	I have already raised issues about the wording. The home authority must
	take such steps as they consider appropriate,
	and the host authority must use best endeavours. To say that an authority has failed in such a statutory duty is pretty hard to do. I therefore urge Ministers to consider tightening up that wording, even if, for now, it appears only in guidance. If we are to ensure that those young people receive education where it is practical to deliver it, perhaps we need a stronger commitment. That also picks up on another important point, in addition to transparency, about moneyit is often about resources. Given plentiful quantities of money, host, home and custody authorities would be only too happy to provide more educational support for young people and, if they had the resources, perhaps they would be able to ensure a more settled time in custody the better to provide them with education. I am concerned about the way in which the host authorities will access the money. I understand from the Minister that money will be transferred to local authorities, but will transparency apply to those requests from host authorities to home authorities and to the responses that they receive? I should be grateful if the Minister explained to the House and to me exactly how the host authority may claim funding to ensure that the person it has assessed receives the education that that authority thinks is right.
	On the subject of visibility, are the Government, like many on both sides of the House, keen on league tables? If necessary, could league tables on performance in looking after the education and the progress of young people in custody be published to shame authorities into improving their performance? At the very least, if they discovered that other authorities were doing a much better job, they could make contact with those authorities and try to find out what was required to help them improve.

Graham Stuart: I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and it brings me to my final point, about subsection (4)(c) of proposed new section 562C, which states that where
	it appears to the host authority that the special educational provision so specified
	by the former home authority
	is no longer appropriate
	it can be set aside, as hon. Members have said. However, if it is set aside, some form of formal assessment should be carried out by the host authority. That authority should not be able simply to declare that it deems that that provision is no longer appropriatea formal process should be conducted to ensure that that decision is reached after a rigorous assessment, and is not done purely to suit the authority's financial situation.

David Burrowes: My hon. Friend has made a very good point. Given the indication that the statement of special educational needs would effectively be suspended, does he share my concern that not only does that change the duty of the home authority and puts the onus on the host authority but it takes away parents' rights regarding statements? No longer will they be party to any reviews or appeals: they will be cut out of the process of SEN provision for their child while he or she is in custody. Does he share my concern that the Minister has not adequately thought through that loss of contact and representation for parents?

Sharon Hodgson: As hon. Members will know, I spoke on Second Reading and served on the infamous Public Bill Committee. A lot of fun was had, and I enjoyed spending a great deal of time with Members from all parts of the Houseprobably more time than I would have liked at times. It was an occasion that I will not forget in a hurry, and it will give me many happy memories in the years to come.
	I wish to speak in support of new clause 14, and seek clarification from the Minister on a couple of aspects of the Bill's implementation. As we know, a large proportion of young people who are detained have special educational needs and many of those are identified, but as the Minister is well aware, many are not. I am pleased that the new clause pays significant attention to children with special educational needs.
	My contributions in Committee were intended to elicit reassurances from the Minister that the particular needs of children with disabilities and additional special educational needs will be met, but it should not go without mention that the Minister told me that expenditure on those with SEN has risen by the best part of 500 million since 2000. The specific references that will come about as a result of the new clause will further back up that commitment.
	However, I am concerned that we still cannot identify the number of children or young people detained in juvenile custody who have an SEN, what that SEN isI have campaigned long and hard on this, as Ministers knowor the number of those who are later given a statement. Although I accept that there is a duty on local authorities to monitor and provide for children for whom they are responsible, it is a cause for concern that yet again there is a deficit of information in an area in which a problem clearly exists. I wholeheartedly support the amendment, which places a duty on a host local authority.

John Hayes: I know that the hon. Lady feels passionately about these subjects, as do I. Would she acknowledge that one of the key aspects of that information is the specificity and quantification of the provision that is put in place to meet the statemented need? There seems to be some variability about that between authorities, and some problem with passing on that information in detail from one authority to another as a child and later a young person goes through the system?

Sharon Hodgson: I agree. As hon. Members know, I introduced a private Member's Bill on special educational needs and the collection of information. The problem exists not only for children in custody, but for children as they move around the country, even with their parents being totally responsible for them. Often the information is not passed on from one local authority to another with regard to the specific needs of that child. I have had personal experience of starting again, in effect, when one moves to a new local authority. The amendment is welcome because, when a child or young person moves into a local authority, it will help inform the authority that they may need an SEN assessment or a statement.

Rob Marris: I refer to new clause 14 and to what, if it is passed, will become section 562B of the Education Act 1996. Subsection (2)(a) reads:
	The home authority must
	(a) during the period of detention in relevant youth accommodation. . .take such steps as they consider appropriate to promote the person's fulfilment of his or her learning potential.
	I wish to probe the Minister a little on resources for the fulfilment of that statutory commitment.
	I confess that the last time I looked at per capita annual spending on the education of young people in the secure estate, compared to per capita annual spending on a pupil at a state secondary school, was probably five years ago, in the previous Parliament. Let us add to the equation the amount spent by many local authorities for a tiny minority of children with very severe emotional and behavioural difficulties who are put in secure accommodation, not necessarily because of criminal acts of any sort, but because they are so disturbed that they need a very high level of support, to the extent that it is residential and often geographically outside the home local authority area. For example, Wolverhampton used to send children to somewhere in Devon. It is debatable whether that is good for the child. For most of them, it is better that they remain nearer where they live, although not in every case if they have a very disruptive family.
	I would not want anyone to think that these are exact figures, but for purposes of comparison let me give the figures, very roughly, a few years ago. For a child from Wolverhampton who was placed in such secure residential accommodation because of their emotional and behavioural difficulties, the average cost was 150,000 a year. For some, however, the cost was 250,000 a year, meaning that, if a child went into such an institution for four years, they could cost 1 million. It drained a huge proportion from the health budget and the local authority budget, albeit for children with very severe difficulties. Those were extreme figures.
	The approximate spending per capita per yearI am talking about five years agoon an average child in a secondary school was 4,000 a year. That was for a child who went to school for roughly six hours a day, five days a week, 39 weeks a year. By contrast, the figure for a young person in a secure estate was lower; it was in the low 3,000s.
	It was difficult to form an idea of the figures, because, frankly, the Government did not keep them and one had to try to work them out as best one could. It was a slightly back-of-an-envelope calculation, because the figures that the Government started with involved taking the number of places in an institution, such as Pucklehurst where Stephen Fry was as a teenager, and dividing that by the budget. Then, one had the per capita figure, but, of course, that included accommodationfood, heating, lighting, security and so on.
	The comparative figure was just over 3,000 a year, as far as I could tell, for a young person in a secure estate, as opposed to someone in a regular secondary school, who cost about 4,000 a year. That struck me as absolutely potty, given that, as I understand it, a large plurality, if not a majority, of young people in a secure estate have severe difficulties with basic learningwith the three R's. It is one of the factors that can become an indicator of someone's being in a secure estate. I must stress that I do not suggest that a young person aged 13 or 14 who is not functionally literate will necessarily end up in a secure estate, but a disproportionate number of young people who are not functionally literate do.

Kelvin Hopkins: I am sure that my hon. Friend saw a recent documentary about young people being taught to read, and the transformation in behaviour of one young person who had caused massive problems in school. They were successfully taught to read, and they were transformed as a person. They became happy and well integrated, and they led a productive life at school and beyond.

Rob Marris: I agree because, at base, it is partly about self-esteem. It is also about whether such people are likely to offend upon their release because of their emotional state, their chances of getting a job and their level of basic skills.
	Proposed new section 562B(2)(a) has resource implications and I hope that the Minister will assure me that those approximate figures from five years ago have been superseded. The Government have taken the issue in hand over the past five years, because of pressure from all parts of the House, and they have done much better on education for young people in the secure estate. However, I want reassurance from the Ministerperhaps not today, because it can be difficult to unravel such figuresthat, per capita per annum, spending on the education of young people in a secure estate is more than that which is spent on children in a regular state secondary school.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: As we work with partners on the guidance, we can consider at what level parents will be engaged in the education processwhether it will be a replica of what happens in the sentence planning process or whether we want to do something particularly for young people with special educational needs. Parents are closely involved with those provisions.
	Two questions were asked about funding. Funding will go to the YPLA and then to the host authorities. We are considering how best we can ensure that the funding designated for education in custody is spent on that and how we get equality of spend across the system. We will work closely with all the partners to agree a model for how we can make that happen. In England, the funding will flow from central Government to the YPLA to the host LEAs, which will then use it to secure education and training for juveniles in custody. In Wales, it will be slightly differentthe funding will be re-routed from the Youth Justice Board's budget to the Welsh Assembly Government and then distributed to host LEAs, which will receive additional funding to carry out their new responsibilities of securing education and training in juvenile custody.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: We are looking forward to agreeing that model as we bring it forward. The home LEA is involved because the Bill proposes that host LEAs should be able to recoup the cost of SEN provision from home authorities, which they are not providing while the young person is in custody. We need to get the model right and ensure that all the partners are involved.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Mrs. Hodgson) is a seasoned campaigner on behalf of young people with SEN. Her Bill is very important because, as she rightly says, information flows are vital.

Edward Balls: Over the past few days, people around the country will have been horrified to read that one of the defendants found guilty in respect of the death of baby Peter has also committed another vile and disgusting crime against a small and vulnerable child. There is nothing that we can do to take away the suffering caused by such terrible crimes, but it is our responsibility to do everything that we can to ensure that there are the best possible child protection arrangements in Haringey and across the country.
	In November last year, I asked Lord Laming to provide us with an independent progress report on child protection across the country. In my statement to the House on 12 March I confirmed that we would accept all Lord Laming's recommendations and set out the immediate action that we were taking to implement them. In his report, Lord Laming concluded that the Every Child Matters reforms provided
	a sound framework for professionals to protect children and promote their welfare.
	However, he also stated that there now needed to be
	a step change in the arrangements to protect children from harm.
	He challenged us to do more to ensure that leaders of local services accept their responsibility to
	translate policy, legislation and guidance into day-to-day practice on the frontline of every service.
	As I said in my statement to the House a few weeks ago, in that report Lord Laming made a series of detailed recommendations to ensure that best practice is universally applied in every area of the country, to improve local accountability and to provide more support for local leaders and the front-line work force. Tomorrow we will set out our detailed response to Lord Laming's report and our new vision for the new national safeguarding delivery unit, as well as the first recommendations of our social work taskforce to improve front-line social work practice.
	Today, we have tabled three new clauses that will help us to go further towards implementing Lord Laming's recommendations in this Bill, and I thank Opposition Members for their co-operation in agreeing to the new clauses coming forward on Report. They will introduce new statutory targets for safeguarding and child protection and require local safeguarding children boards to appoint two members drawn from the local community and to publish an annual report on their effectiveness.
	New clause 22 will insert a new section into the Children Act 2004 to allow us to introduce the statutory targets that Lord Laming recommended in his report, to ensure that safeguarding and child protection are the top priority in every area. Of course, there is a national role in the setting of those targets, but the vital thing is for local agencies to be consulted on those targets and then to ensure that they are properly driven forward locally. That is why they must take account of local performance and circumstance and why we expect local authorities to consult all local agencies and to propose challenging targets to us. We will bring forward secondary legislation to address the details of how those targets will be set, alongside the review of the range of safeguarding targets, and will publish a new framework in the autumn.

Tim Loughton: I echo the Secretary of State's sentiment that every right-thinking person in this country will have been absolutely horrified at the further revelations that have come out of the baby P affair. That makes it even more urgent to acknowledge that the measures that we all bring innot just the Government, but all the other agencies involvedare very necessary. We can always clamp down, but we can never eliminate altogether those people who are intent on doing evil things to children. However, the duty of all of us is to make that as difficult as possible for them by eliminating as many opportunities as possible, and to keep a strong watching eye on the people who are minded to do these horrendous things to children.
	We are waiting eagerly for the rest of the measures that the Secretary of State will introduce in response to Lord Laming's report, which he will announce tomorrow. I presume that we will have proper opportunity, through an oral statement, to scrutinise some of those measures. We also await the interim report from the social work taskforce, which forms an integral part of this whole exercise.
	I want to comment on most of the amendments and new clauses in the group. I shall first comment on our amendment 54 and then on Government amendments 18 and 19 together with the accompanying new clause 21. I shall then comment briefly on new clause 29, tabled by the Liberal Democrats. Subsequently, I will come to the main motions, which I view as Government new clauses 22, 23 and 23, and I shall want to speak to them in greater detail.
	Amendment 54, which was tabled by my hon. Friends, is about the duty to co-operate. It is effectively about the membership of children's trust and the definitions of who constitute the relevant partners that form those trusts. My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) raised the issue in Committee, explaining that in our view, the list of those relevant partners is not as exhaustive as it should be. Hence the purpose of the amendment is to add further names of agencies to clause 187. They are the further relevant partners who should be consulted and form part of the children's trusts network.
	The four additional agencies that we would like to see added to the Bill largely reflect the results of the Government's own consultation. These four agencies are, first,
	a short stay school within the area of the authority
	effectively the pupil referral units, which are now being renamed. The second is
	a Sure Start Children's Centre within the area of the authority.
	The third is
	a representative of an extended school provider with authority
	very much a moveable feast in respect of who exactly it will be, as extended schools are rolled out and encompass more and more partners. That is why it is so important for this provision to be built directly into the Bill. Fourthly and particularlythis is another issue that came out of the Government's consultationthere are
	general medical practitioners within the area of the authority.
	It was found that engaging GPs with children's centres and some other partners had proved particularly challenging, which is why we think there is a case for naming them directly in the Bill. Amendment 54 is thus straightforward in making more explicit the relevant partners that should be named within the legislation.
	Let me turn briefly to deal with Government new clause 21 and the corresponding amendments 18 and 19. I welcome the Secretary of State's comments and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), who now seems to have dismissed himself, on the pressure he brought to bear in Committee, where it was felt that the burdens placed on colleges were slightly onerous and that the duty to co-operatenot now on a funding conditionwas a welcome remodelling of the thrust of this part of Bill, without undermining its credibility. Further education colleges already do a lot to support and promote well-being throughout communities. If anything, we should be giving them more freedom to pursue those aims even more and to promote good practice.

Anne Main: My hon. Friend is absolutely right that our further education colleges do a really good job, but they are often let down. In my constituency, for example, the Learning and Skills Council has not only wasted 12.5 million on running itself into a lease that it now has to get out of, but has withdrawn 40 million from a huge further education projectnamely, Oaklands college, which will now probably fail. The Government might talk wise words, but they do not always deliver

Tim Loughton: My hon. Friend has done well to make that point, getting in almost under the radar. There is an opportunity to take it further during tomorrow morning's Westminster Hall debate, when the complete shambles that has been the LSC and the Government's handling of further education funding can be explored in more detail and in order.
	We welcome what the Government have done in respect of the new clause and the amendments and will support those measures.
	The Liberal Democrats have tabled a number of proposals, which I will allow them to speak to for themselves, but I want to touch on new clause 29  [Interruption.] The reason I am letting them speak to those proposals for themselves is that some do not add up, in particular new clause 29.

Tim Loughton: I would be delighted to defer to the hon. Gentleman to allow him to comment on our single amendment.
	New clause 29, tabled by the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends, requests that a
	Children's Services Authority... must ensure that the Local Safeguarding Board... has
	an independent chairman. Actually, those boards already can, and in many cases do, so I am slightly at a loss as to why primary legislation is required to bring that about.
	Indeed, when the issue of baby P and serious case review handling by local safeguarding children boards came up back in the autumn, Conservative-run authorities were advised to ensure that they had chairmen or chairwomen of those boards who were independent and that the boards were no longer chaired by the director of children's services, as had been the case in many authorities.
	All Conservative-run authorities had either made moves to bring that about or were in the process of making such moves. They have led the way and pre-empted a recommendation that it became inevitable Lord Laming would make. It will be interesting to hear from the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) how many Liberal Democrat-run local authorities have followed that advicenot that there are many, but we can at least have a good stab at finding out how much they have done already to put their principles into practice.
	The Government's main proposals are new clauses 22, 23 and 24, which are important. I think that the Secretary of State would acknowledge that we have been proactive and positive in supporting child protection legislation post-Victoria Climbi, and have been constructively critical in many examples, but we have always supported those measures that we think will lead to greater protection of children. Alas, too many of those measures have not had the desired effectfor a host of reasons that it is not appropriate to go into now. We had a debate on child protection a month or two ago.
	I am keen to learn from the Secretary of State greater detail as to why he thinks that these particular measures will improve the quality of the outcomes, by which I mean that more children will be better protected and fewer will end up meeting the horrific end of baby Peter and other children who have died at the hands of parents or carers in recent years.
	I am not interested in the quantity of legislation. I think we have concentrated too much on quantity in the nine years since the death of Victoria Climbi. We must focus much more on the quality of the legislation, particularly the quality of the outcomes that it achieves.
	I have enormous respect for Herbert Laming, who was one of the patrons of the Conservative commission on social worker practices, but part of the criticism has been that the 108 recommendations made in relation to Victoria Climbi have added to the bureaucracy, which can be said to have made the job of social workers rather more difficult. My problem, therefore, is how many of the 58 further recommendations being made in Laming 2 will add yet further to the bureaucracy, with Herbert Laming having himself acknowledged how too much bureaucracy has grown up around the field of child protection and is becoming, in some cases, self-defeating.

Tim Loughton: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We need fewer case loads heaped on to individual social workers, we need more permanent social workersas opposed to agency or short-term social workersand we need to free up more of social workers' time, so that they can get on with their job of protecting children and vulnerable families and meeting them face to face rather than being shackled to their computers and assessment forms. That is what Laming, Unison and all other dispassionate observers say is now happening. Some surveys estimate that social workers and child protection workers spend up to 80 per cent. of their time in front of computers and doing paperwork for assessment.
	We must judge the Bill according to the extent to which it helps, or hinders, our ability to counter the problems that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. That is why I want to concentrate on bureaucracy. So far we have heard no details of the targets mentioned in new clause 22 from the Secretary of State, but I fear that that new clause, in particular, will heap more targets, and potentially more bureaucracy, on top of performance indicators, rather than replacing them.
	The performance indicators currently in use for the safeguarding of children are inadequate to the task for which they were designed, which came across clearly in Laming 2, which said:
	Discussion with local authorities suggested that this was because of concerns that current indicators focus on processes and timescales, are not helpful in creating shared safeguarding priorities amongst statutory partners, are unclear in their impact upon positive outcomes for children and young people, and do not drive improved services.
	That is what Laming said in the opening of his report. Let us look at what others have said about the bureaucracy that has crept into the child protection system, and which I fear may be behind some of these new proposals. Mick Brookes, head of the National Association of Head Teachers, has said:
	Government should immediately act to lift the burden of bureaucracy on our public services, much of it imposed as a result of incessant reform.
	Christine Blower, head of the National Union of Teachers, has said:
	The solutions to preventing future tragedies such as 'Baby P' lie not in top-down bureaucracy but in the provision of proper resources, back-up and training for frontline services such as social work, and in enabling local authorities to construct effective co-ordinated services in the knowledge that they will face tough action if they fail.
	That view has been reflected in the observations of a number of commentators who are closely involved in child protection.
	The 58 recommendations in the second Laming report underlie these new clauses, and will underlie further proposals which the Secretary of State will no doubt unveil tomorrow. Those proposals may or may not require primary legislation, but they will certainly be contained in various regulations. An awful lot of what is being proposed amounts to further bureaucracy rather than the achievement of qualitative outcomes. One example is the establishment of a national safeguarding delivery unit.
	The national safeguarding delivery unit will report to the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Families, Children and Young People. Earlier, the Secretary of State exalted the merits of greater transparency and public involvement. The problem is that the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Families, Children and Young People is shrouded in secrecy. In response to a question that I tabled to the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), asking what reasons were given
	not to disclose information relating to proceedings of the Cabinet Sub-committee on Families, Children and Young People; and when the Sub-committee last met,
	the Under-Secretary of State replied:
	Information relating to the proceedings of Cabinet Committees, including when, how often and for how long they meet, is generally not disclosed; as to do so could harm the frankness and candour of internal discussion.[ Official Report, 30 March 2009; Vol. 490, c. 862W.]
	So we do not know what that Sub-Committee actually does, nor how it will respond to the proceedings of the national safeguarding delivery unit. It therefore seems to be an extra bit of bureaucracy, whose merits in achieving qualitative outcomes are questionablebut in any case we cannot question it, because it meets in secret and its minutes are not published. That is a good example of the lack of transparency that some of these proposals will create.
	Other recommendations underlying the new clauses include the following: that there should be statutory targets for safeguarding and protection, alongside the existing statutory attainment and early-years targets, to be produced as quickly as possible; that the Department of Health must clarify and strengthen the responsibilities of strategic health authorities; that directors of children's services and primary care trusts must regularly review all points of referral; and that all directors of children's services must appoint a senior manager within their team with the necessary skills and experience, and organise regular training and needs assessments. Therefore, a lot of extra bureaucracy will be added to the child protection procedures as a result of following the recommendations of Laming 2, if that is what the Secretary of State is going to doand given that he has already committed himself to accepting all those recommendations in practice and that we have the first few of them here, it appears that that is the route down which he will go.

Edward Balls: The hon. Gentleman asks for transparency. As I want to respond clearly to his remarks, I must say to him that so far his comments have been obfuscatory and very unclear. He began by praising Lord Laming, but his subsequent remarks have left me very confused, and I need to know the following so that I can respond clearly. Lord Laming has made a series of recommendations, and I said in a statement to the House a few weeks ago that I accepted those recommendations and would implement them. Lord Laming recommended the following: that there should be an annual report to the children's trustthe local safeguarding board; that there should be a national delivery unit reporting to the Sub-Committee; and that there should be new statutory targets. I am implementing Lord Laming's recommendationsincluding through this Billbecause I support them. Do the hon. Gentleman and his party support Lord Laming's recommendations, yes or no? I ask that because what the hon. Gentleman has so far said has been very confusing indeed.

Tim Loughton: I think that I have made it absolutely clear that we do not support one of Lord Laming's central recommendations: that there should be a national safeguarding delivery unit. We have said that right from the beginning, so our position should not cause any shock or horror. We just think that that is the wrong way to go about things. Lord Laming does not say that ContactPoint is essential for child protectionhe has never said that. If the Secretary of State were to reread the Climbi report, he would find that Lord Laming does not say that ContactPoint is an essential component of child protection; Lord Laming is a supporter of ContactPoint for reasons other than that it is an essential part of child protection.

Tim Loughton: I am seriously worried that the Secretary of State is shaking his head, because he now needs to have a very close and up-front conversation with Lord Laming as he has misunderstood the reasoning behind the approach taken by the author of the report that he commissioned. That is seriously worrying [Interruption.] I do not support some of the recommendations in Lord Laming's report and I have detailed those. I could detail all the recommendations that the Conservatives do support, if the Secretary of State would like me to do so. The relevant point that I am trying to make on the three new clauses that we are discussing is that we risk adding to the bureaucracy that has been the biggest enemy of effective social work practice for too many years. We have to get that system right.
	We already have numerous performance indicators, to which these new clauses, in particular new clause 22, will add targets. One such indicator is that initial assessments for children's social care are to be carried out within seven working days of referral. That is a good proposal, but the trouble is that in practice what has happened in certain authorities is that in order to meet that performance indicator, certain departments have written an assessment that includes the name and address of the child onlythe rest of the assessment is blank, yet that counts as an assessment to meet the performance indicator. The Secretary of State seems to be shaking his head, but that is happening and it is not what he and I want to achieve. He and I do not want to achieve that target if in our doing so the target becomes meaningless.

Tim Loughton: The Secretary of State does not make his point any clearer by simply repeating himself. What does not help us is his coming along today with new clauses of primary legislation that contain no detail. We are expected to pass a new clause that will impose new targets, on top of flawed performance indicators, without knowing the details of it. I am even more worried now, because he clearly has not been reading the report by the author whom he commissioned. If he were to do so, he would find out that this is additional bureaucracy, not replacement bureaucracy, in too many cases. I could go through a list of performance indicators, most of which he appears to be blissfully aware of; the important thing is that we should not have bland and vacuous targets, which could have unforeseen consequences, one of which I have mentioned.
	Let me give the Secretary of State a series of questions, so that he can tell me whether these are going to be the targets when we are eventually provided with some of the detail. Are the targets going to be bare targets about reducing the number of children taken into care for child protection purposes?

Edward Balls: Lord Laming says that we should review the current targets and put in place new statutory targets. I said clearly in my speech that we would have a consultation process with local authorities and the social work task force over the coming months into the autumn. Alongside that, we will come forward with secondary legislation to enact the clauses that we are debating today. I am not going to tell the hon. Gentleman what the outcome of that consultation will bethat is for the consultation in the coming months. It will cover the range of targets, including the performance indicators, so that we can come up with new statutory targets.
	The hon. Gentleman fundamentally misunderstands the Laming recommendations. To ask me that question when I have already said that the consultation will take place shows a lack of understanding combined with a complete opposition to the central recommendations of the Laming report.
	On the issue of ContactPoint

Tim Loughton: The NSPCC has been mooted as a partner on the LSCBs. Other children's protection charities have an equal claim to be on the boards. I am in favour of lay members on the LSCBs, but I am trying to put into perspective the role that the Secretary of State expects them to achieve. We are trying to address the loss of authority that the LSCBs have suffered as a result of their role in Haringey and other local authorities where there have been tragedies such as that of baby Peter, which have resulted in the commissioning of serious case reviews that can then not be published 41 per cent. of which Ofsted has deemed to be unsatisfactory. We need to open up the LSCBs much more. It will probably take more than just the appointment of two laypersons among a cast of thousands to do that.
	Absolutely key to opening up those local safeguarding children boards is the publication in full of serious case reviewsa move of which the Secretary of State seems to have a pathological dislike. The body of evidence, and the amount of support, for such publication is growing. The publication of serious case reviews, duly anonymised and redacted, where it would not compromise the welfare of a surviving child or his or her siblings, would do more to give credibility to the work of those local safeguarding children boards, and to the idea that things are being looked at, investigated and rectified properly than anything else. It would certainly do more than just the appointment of two lay members. I do not understand why the Government have an absolute, blinkered hatred for the idea.

Edward Balls: The confidentiality of the full serious case review is not supported by the Conservative party, but it is supported by Lord Laming, and by the NSPCC and the Deputy Children's Commissioner, who both agree with Lord Laming's recommendation that keeping the full serious case review confidential is essential to keep children safe. That was true three months ago, six months ago, and today. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his remark, because the fact is that the NSPCC, the Deputy Children's Commissioner and Lord Laming once again all hold the opposite position to the Conservative party on the issue. They say that the Conservative proposals would put children at risk.

Edward Balls: We have had a litany of criticisms from the Conservative party of all the different recommendations in Lord Laming's report on the confidentiality of serious case reviews, on the national safeguarding unit, and on reporting to the Cabinet sub-committee. It is true to say that the hon. Gentleman seems to be supporting our proposal on lay members, but even then he is casting doubt on it. I have heard no support so far for the measures that we are taking in this debate, but if he would like to tell us which recommendations he supports, I will then withdraw.

Tim Loughton: The Secretary of State really does himself no credit. Some of us have worked for rather longer than he has been in the House on child protection measures post Victoria Climbi. We have supported every single piece of child protection legislation that his Government have introduced, but we did not do that by failing to question the efficacy of some of it. What we are doing today is questioning the efficacy of some of the legislative proposals for which he is seeking our support. I have made it absolutely clear to him that although I fully support Lord Laming's dedication and the passion, we just disagree with him on somenot allof his recommendations, including some of the key ones which, we think, are absolutely flawed. Certainly, in the case of SCRs, the Secretary of State has not been able to tell us why he is against their publicationhe just cited Herbert Laming, with whom we disagree. His role is to scrutinise and question those people who give him advice, not blindly to accept everything.
	We need legislation that has been thought through properly. If that is the case, and if the Secretary of State can show that it will improve qualitative outcomes rather than just add to the body of legislation, of which we have had rather a lot, we will support him. So far, he has not done anything. I support the new clause.  [ Interruption. ] The Secretary of State is the one who has been playing politics, by making some very wild and unhelpful remarks, on the child protection issue. I have no problem with allowing lay members to be added to local safeguarding children boardsI support thatbut what I am questioning is how much it will add in the greater scheme of things. There is one thing that he could do here and now: issue guidance about the full publication of serious case reviews, which would do much more to make those LSCBs fully transparent and accountable.

Tim Loughton: Absolutely, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was about to conclude, and I shall finish briefly with new clause 24, which requires LSCBs to produce an annual report. Again, I have no problem with thatit is a good thing if it adds to transparency. But again, I would like to know from the Secretary of State what he thinks that will achieve. The publication of 150 brochures by LSCBs throughout the countrywhat will that include and what is it intended to achieve?
	The exercise must be about restoring confidence in the child protection system. LSCBs are the guardians of the efficacy of the child protection system around the country, yet we are unable to see their full deliberations when that child protection system goes wrong, as has been shown by the debate that we have just had on the publication of serious case reviews. All I have tried to do is get some detail in some very vague new clauses, which on the face of it give wide powers to the Secretary of State to add bureaucracy to the bureaucracy that already exists in the child protection system. I shall finish where I came in. I think that is the biggest enemy of social workers being able to get on with their job. We have been exceedingly supportive of social workers being able to get on with their job. We have made a series of recommendations through No More Blame Game and the submission that the commission on social workers made to the Laming inquiry in February, which is about peeling back the bureaucracy from social workers. My fear about the amendments is that unintentionally they may add to it. If the Government and the Secretary of State can show that they will add to the bureaucracy but that that will add to the quality of the outcomes, we will support them.
	I wait for a proper explanation when the right hon. Gentleman responds to the debate. In his opening remarks, there was no detail at all. The House and all those working in child protection in the country are entitled to rather more detail and a far more substantial explanation than the Secretary of State has given us thus far.

Andrew Dismore: I shall speak to amendment 15, which stands in my name, as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The amendment was tabled on behalf of the Committee to give effect to one of the recommendations in our scrutiny report on the Bill.
	The Bill places children's trust boards on a statutory footing. In its 2008 concluding observations on the UK, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, commenting on the UK Government's overall strategy for implementing the UN convention, welcomed the fact that the convention was referred to in the children's plan, but expressed its continuing concern
	that the Convention is not regularly used as a framework for the development of strategies throughout the State party and at the lack of an overarching policy to ensure the full realization of the principles, values and goals of the Convention.
	We agree with that criticism and we asked the Government what, if any, would be their objection to the Bill being amended to require children's trust boards, first, to have regard to the need to implement the UN convention when preparing their children and young persons' plans, and secondly, to consult with children and young people in the preparation of the plans, as envisaged by article 12 of the convention. We welcome the Government's commitment in relation to the second suggestion that children and young people should be consulted when the children and young people's plan is being drawn up, and the fact that this will be made a requirement in the new regulations governing the adoption of such plans.
	However, my Committee is disappointed by the Government's refusal to adopt the UN convention as the strategic framework for children's plans. In their response to our question, the Government state that they consider it
	unnecessary to have any specific provision falling on the Children's Trust Board to have regard to the UNCRC when preparing its plan.
	The Government's reason is that they say that the UK complies with its obligations under the UNCRC through a mixture of legislative, executive and judicial action, and they are content that their legislation is consistent with the provisions of the convention. They say that the broader issue of embedding the UNCRC into UK policy and practice is covered in the Green Paper on a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, and they consider that the appropriate way to take the issue forward.
	Although the Green Paper welcomes public debate on whether children's rights should be included in any Bill of Rights, and considers that such a Bill
	could contain a right for children to achieve well-being, whatever their background or circumstances,
	it nevertheless acknowledges that the UNCRC is
	the overarching international treaty for children's rights ratified by almost all UN member states.
	However, the Green Paper contains no proposal for further embedding the UNCRC into UK policy and practice. If anything, the Green Paper appears sceptical of the value of such a proposal, preferring to emphasise that the goal of achieving improved outcomes is pursued in distinctive ways across the UK, and indicating that any Bill of Rights and Responsibilities should allow for recognition that responsibility for many aspects of child well-being is devolved.
	My Committee was not persuaded by the Government's reasons for not taking the opportunity in the Bill to embed the UNCRC in further policy-making. The Bill's provisions on the drawing up of children and young people's plans provide an opportunity for the Government to respond positively and constructively to the concern of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child that the convention is not regularly used as a framework for the development of children's strategies. We recommended that the Bill be amended to require children's trust boards to have regard to the need to implement the UNCRC when preparing children and young people's plans, and in our report we suggested an amendment to achieve this, which is the amendment that I tabled for today's debate.
	This is, in effect, a more specific version of the duty that now appears in clause 1 of the Equality Bill. It requires the strategic decision-making authorities for childrenthe children's trust boardsto have regard to the need to implement the UNCRC when drawing up strategic plans for children. The UNCRC includes a duty to realise progressively various social and economic rightsfor example, the right to an adequate standard of living, access to health, education and so onas interpreted by the UN committee. Both the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on Economic and Social Rights want states to adopt strategic plans for the implementation of the rights, particularly the social and economic rights, in the UNCRC and in the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights.
	The point of our amendment is to require the strategic decision-making authorities for children to have regard to the need to implement the UN convention, including by progressively realising their right to an adequate income and so on, when drawing up strategic children's plans. Like the Equality Bill clause 1 duty, it could be judicially reviewable if the children's trust board does not have regard to the UNCRC when drawing up its plans. This is a way of ensuring that the CRC, which protects children's social and economic rights, is more firmly embedded in strategic decision making about children. That is what the amendment seeks to achieve. It is regrettable that the Government have not accepted it so far, and I hope they will now reconsider, in the light of our amendment.

Annette Brooke: We on the Liberal Democrat Benches welcome new clause 21 and consider it a good response to the debate that we had in Committee.
	On new clauses 22 to 24, I shall reflect on the significance of our debate today and the Government's announcements tomorrow, given the additional shocking news that was revealed in the past week and the Panorama programme last night, which had some serious messages for us all. Child protection is the most important issue that we face, and it should not be used as a political football.
	I shall comment on each of the Government's proposed new clauses. I have concerns about new clause 22 in particular, and those concerns are deep set, because my reading of Laming's review is not the same as the Secretary of State's. I do not think that new clause 22 addresses what Laming had to say. For example, Laming stated:
	The performance indicators currently in use for the safeguarding of children are inadequate for this task. Discussion with local authorities
	I do not regard that as full consultation, by the way
	suggested that this was because of concerns that current indicators focus on processes and timescales
	I agree with that, but Laming went on to say that they
	are not helpful in creating shared safeguarding priorities amongst statutory partners, are unclear in their impact upon positive outcomes for children and young people, and do not drive improved services.
	Laming went on to recommend that the statutory targets
	should be reviewed to include safeguarding and child protection targets,
	but he said:
	These indicators must be specifically agreed by the Department of Health and the Home Office to ensure they are reflected in the performance management frameworks of Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs), Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and Police Authorities.
	The new clause does not seem to be directed at the right body. It is directed at the children's services authority, and I do not understand why it is not directed at the children's trust board, which would involve the other agencies. I do not see how the new clause would result in the important partner bodies fully accepting the targets. I make that point in extreme seriousness, because one great concern is that the new clause will not be fit for purpose.
	My other concern is that we do not know the precise targets that the Secretary of State has in mind, and we all know that targets can have unintended consequencesthere have undoubtedly been some in children's legislation. Therefore, we do not feel able to give our unequivocal support to the provisions without knowing a lot more about them. We wish to reserve our position, because we want to ensure that we have the best possible legislation for the protection of children, and we are not convinced about the measure at this stage.
	Under new clause 23, lay members would be included on the safeguarding children boards, which is perfectly sensible, although I have some concerns about the training that would have to be given to those members, and about their exact role and status. At this stage, we do not know about that.
	On new clause 24, the Laming review clearly recommends that the safeguarding children boards should produce annual reports, and I cannot see anything whatever to object to in that. However, the process in respect of which Laming recommendations are brought forward for consideration today, what will be in the announcements tomorrow and what might be introduced to the Bill at its next stage seems a little pick and mix.
	My hon. Friends and I have tabled an amendment on the independence of the chairman of a safeguarding board. Interestingly, Lord Laming made a recommendation on the chairmanship of the board, when he clearly said that he did not think that the same person should occupy the chairs of the children's trust board and the local safeguarding board. Therefore, it seems relevant to consider our suggestion, which is carefully written, because it would permit a member of another authority to move across and aid the scrutiny role of an authority. That issue needs to be discussed, and I hope that the Secretary of State will give it some serious consideration.
	I shall take a minute to comment on the Laming review, generally. It was important to have a speedy review, and full congratulations must go to Lord Laming on what he achieved in the time that he had. However, his time was limited and the consultation was limited, so, yet again, I make the point that, notwithstanding Lord Laming's experience and considerable knowledge of the issues, a fresh pair of eyes should look at the system, because they may see things that others have missed.
	New clause 20 is the slightly amended version of an amendment that we discussed in Committee, and it is right to revisit a subject that was raised at the end of a very long sitting on 26 March. On that occasion, my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) outlined most eloquently why we feel that its provisions are necessary. The new clause would introduce a statutory duty to ensure that the investigating or key worker saw the child separately from his or her parent or carer.
	My hon. Friend had the advantage of having read the serious case review regarding baby Peter, so he was able to reflect on the issue more deeply than I shall be able to today. However, it is vital that we think about what happened in two, infamous cases. We know that nobody spoke to Victoria Climbi, yet she died in shocking conditions. We know also that baby Peter had his face smeared with chocolate to conceal the bruising and injuries to him. How can weanybodysuggest that it is not important for a key worker to have time alone with a vulnerable child to talk to them, where appropriate, and to communicate with them in all sorts of ways? It is accepted that the child's views must be presented, but I suggest that we need to go one stage further: will we really be able to hold our heads up if we have yet another case in which a baby or young child is severely abused or even killed and the social worker has not had any meaningful and direct communication with them?
	Although my hon. Friend put forward an excellent case at the end of that very long sitting in Committee, it was clearly a tiring time for the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, and I take issue with some of her comments at the time. That is not to attach any blame whatever to her, because it was a very long sitting. Indeed, she did not have all the time that she might have wanted to reflect on the new clause, because, under normal circumstances, we would probably have considered it some days later.

Annette Brooke: I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but it is important to appreciate that the Government's argument is that the provision in our new clause is already available, so that rather unpicks her remark.
	I shall revisit the Minister remarks on what was technically 26 March, although it must have been the morning of 27 March. Basically, she said that the requirement to see the child separately is already embedded in statutory guidance. Although the guidance, entitled Working Together to Safeguard Children, makes strong statements about the principle of listening to the child, about the parents' needs being subordinate to the child's and so on, it does not require the key social worker to see the child separately from the parents and carers when visiting the home. One would like to think that, if a key worker visited a home and, time after time, was told that the child was asleep or out, alarms would start to ring, and that is what the new clause is all aboutensuring that the alarms ring.
	The guidance says that section 47of the Children Act 1989inquiries should include separate interviews with the child, but those interviews are conducted to discover whether suspicions of significant harm can be substantiated. A section 47 inquiry can run for several weeks, even if the time limits in Working Together are adhered toand in practice, not surprisingly, they may not be. The key worker will probably make a number of home visits during that period, having already conducted the separate interview with the child, as the guidance requires.
	Regularly seeing the child separately is about not just trying to detect the risk of harm, but developing the key worker's relationship with the child as the client and primary focus of attention. The only time Victoria Climbi was seen alone was in two awkward section 47 interviews, both of which failed to establish the truth. That issue was highlighted by Lord Laming in his post-Climbi report.
	Helpfully, the Minister stated that the Government are planning to revise Working Together and may include in the rewrite the issue of seeing the child separately. However, the matter should be put into statute because it is as central to effective child protection as information sharing, which is in statute. Furthermore, in many cases social workers appear to be neglecting to see the child separately. There are manyoften understandablereasons why that may happen, so social workers need a reminder that is more compelling than a new mention in a lengthy piece of guidance that covers many other issues.
	The Minister emphasised the powers that local authorities have at their disposal if parents refuse to give the social worker access to the child. That does not affect the need for new clause 20, however; the question of using the powers arises only if the social worker has been blocked from seeing the child separately, and that would not happen unless they had tried to see the child separately. I therefore contend that that new clause is more important than some that are being rushed through today. It would highlight to social workers the key priority of building a genuine relationship with the child, to get a whole understanding. We have all heard about the closeness of relationships that can develop between the parent, carer and social worker. The relationship that I am discussing is all-important. I hope that the Secretary of State will consider the issue.
	I turn briefly to the other amendments in this group. Personally, I support amendment 15. During consideration of almost all the children's Bills in which I have been involved, I have argued that the United Nations convention on the rights of the child should be embedded in legislation. It would be inconsistent of me not to support the amendment. The issue is so important. As a nation we have signed up to the convention, but we do not fully implement it.
	I have difficulty in understanding Conservative amendment 54. Clause 187 refers to bodies that are to co-operate for the well-being of children. I welcomed the Bill's extension of the definition of bodies to include schools and academies. That is absolutely first class. I am sympathetic with the inclusion of some of the bodies mentioned in the amendment, including short stay schools and Sure Start children's centres. GPs are also mentioned; it will be difficult to impose the measure on them, but personally I think it important that we do. However, also mentioned on the list is
	a representative of an extended school provider with authority.
	That looks like a bit of careless cutting and pasting. If the phrase had been expressed a little better, it might have fitted into an amendment on children's trust boards. When people criticise amendments that I have written, they usually suggest that they are technically deficient, so it gives me great pleasure to point out that I believe amendment 54 to be technically deficient.
	I turn to amendment 67; the Secretary of State will no doubt point out that it is technically deficient, as I wrote it. There are to be lots of players on the children's trust boards and everybody will have lots to say. However, where will the buck stop? I fear that there is no clarity on that in the Bill. The amendment suggests that the children's and young people's plan should have sections clearly identified as the responsibility of particular agencies. When there is a joint responsibility, I suggest that a lead agency should be nominated.
	I appreciate that the amendment may not express those issues in the best way, but I really think that the legislation is deficient. It is not clear that, whatever happens, the director of children's services will be ultimately responsible. Why should they be? As far as I can see, they have only one seat on the board. As the legislation stands, why should it all come back to the director of children's services? The Government need to consider amendments that relate to that issue.

Edward Timpson: I join other Members in paying tribute to Lord Laming and his enormous interest and dedication to child protection. Only recently, he gave evidence to the Children, Schools and Families Committee, on which I sit. Even though he said that this would be his last report, it was clear that he remains committed to child protection. Only yesterday, he was commenting on the future of that issue when he said that social services still needed to act quicker and more decisively to protect youngsters on the at-risk register. He also said that
	Drift is the enemy of good practice.
	That tells us that Lord Laming, as he also made plain in his report, remains exasperated with the lack of progress since the Victoria Climbi case. Although that case ushered in a number of major reforms such as the child protection system, it failed to deal with the problem on the front line of child protection.
	Since that report, far too much time has been spent on organisational changes and not enough has been spent on the social work force, on whom we rely so heavily for the protection of vulnerable children. The service has remained underfunded, under-resourced and, unfortunately, unable to cope with the demands placed on it.
	Although it is important that we try to find ways to improve the structure of our child protection system, I have concerns about new clause 22 and how we are going about those changes. The Secretary of State has put his weight behind the statutory targets as a way forward, but I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). The Secretary of State supports the statutory targets, which he believes to be right to protect children, but unless we have some idea of what they may be, it is difficult, particularly for Conservative Members, to fall in step with the new clause.
	Although my instinct is that targets will not necessarily solve the problem, we can see that some would be beneficial to the child protection systemfor instance, on the quality and consistency of social work care, the timeliness of protective measures for vulnerable children and, most importantly, the outcomes for children who have some contact with the child protection system. If we are to have targets, those are the sort that I would have expected the Secretary of State to mention in response to my hon. Friend.
	Another difficulty is to do with the training, recruitment and retention of social workers. In some local authorities, almost 50 per cent. of front-line child protection staff have less than two years' experience in their job. I have seen that for myself in the work that I have done in the family courts representing local authorities, children and their parents. On far too regular a basis, a social worker, or even a team manager, working for the local authority has made the application to take a child into care but their experience is woefully short for the extreme complexity of the case that is facing them. That is not their fault: it is the fault of all of us in failing to ensure that measures to improve the status of social workers, to invest in the social work profession and to better train social workers have come to fruition.

Edward Timpson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes the case clearly. Unless we ensure that social workers have not only sufficient training but experience through their training and the work that they do on the front line, they will not be able to do the job that we are asking them to do, which is one of extreme importance in our societythe protection of our children. We need to ensure that training is at the forefront of our minds when we look at what we are asking social workers to do.
	One of the remaining problems that the new clause does not address fully, as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) eloquently told us, is that, although the introduction of children's trusts was a commendable idea in trying to involve the whole community in dealing with child protection and to ensure that there is an exchange of information about issues that that community faces, it has notas the Audit Commission said in its report, Are we there yet?resulted in an improvement in child protection. That goes back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham about bureaucracy. One of the reasons children's trusts have failed to make the impact that we hoped for is that the complex bureaucratic systems that have been set up to control child protection engender a culture of trying to comply with the bureaucracy and targets, instead of helping social workers and those involved in child protection to see the wood from the trees and to commit to children's needs, as they are supposed to.
	I hope that the targets that the Secretary of State is asking social workers to comply with do not exacerbate the situation that they already face, and that they will be allowed to be free to get on with the job that we all want them to dospending time looking after children to ensure that they are safe and have a happy and prosperous future. That should be achieved through good practice and a universally sound and robust child protection system that protects all our children, not just some of them.
	I want briefly to mention new clause 23 and put in a plea to the Secretary of State. Although it has been drafted quite widely as regards who could be the lay representatives on trust boards, those who are involved in foster care, particularly foster carers themselves, could play an important role in ensuring that their views and experience, which are often left to one side, are taken seriously and make a positive contribution to child protection in their community.

Kelvin Hopkins: I am sure that several hon. Members saw the Panorama programme to which the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) referred. I was deeply worried by some of the things that I saw on it, particularly the interviews with Wes Kewell, who was at the NSPCC and, prior to that, head of children's services at Luton borough council. I knew him well; he is a very good man. He said that, in the past 30 years, there has been very little change in the rate of deaths of children who are being abused. That is an appalling record bearing in mind that we have moved on in so many ways. He said that if things do not change radically, we will have the same death rates over the next 30 years as well. That must not be allowed to happen. I hope that the changes that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench proposeand that we will, I hope, supportwill make a real difference.
	Another worrying factor is that these days in social services, in general, and in the health service, there is so much emphasis on budgeting, with officers being rewarded for running a tight ship financially. One wonders whether that underlies some of the problems that have arisen. In the baby P case, it was also apparent that nobody wanted to take final responsibility. The local authority, social services and the police were involved, and the national health service saw the injuries to the child on a number of occasions, yet it seemed that no one wanted to say, This child must not be allowed to go back home, where it is clearly being abused. I do not want to prejudice any statement that may come out at a later stage, but that is appalling. If I had been in that situation, I would simply have said, This child must not go back into that home; it is clearly being abused.

Edward Balls: I start by agreeing with the comments of the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr. Timpson), who has great personal as well as professional experience of these matters, about Lord Laming and his contribution. I welcome the hon. Gentleman's comments and questions, to which I shall return in a moment. I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) probed in a way that was pointed and forensic, but which I hope will allow us to move forward consensually as far as possible.
	I believe that there is consensus in the country that we need to take all the measures necessary to keep children safe. With that in mind, and because of my determination to have ready this year, if at all possible, a revision of Working Together, the guidance for all areas on safeguarding, I went to Opposition Members a week or so ago to ask their permission to introduce these new clauses at this stage. I am pleased to say that the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) gave his, subject to agreement that there would be further discussion on the contents of the targets in new clause 22. I commit to those discussions happening in future. I was pleased also to have the agreement of the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) to the introduction of the new clauses, which was confirmed to my office. Because these issues are vital, I hope, as I always have, that we can move forward consensually.
	I shall come to the points made about new clauses 22, 23 and 24 at the end of my comments, but first I shall respond to the detailed points made by Members of all parties about the other amendments. On new clause 29, we are absolutely committed to independence in the chairing of local safeguarding children boards. There has been debate about Lord Laming's consultation process, because there are some concerns in the children's world about whether we will have a sufficient quality of independent people. We believe, as Lord Laming does, that that can be overcome. There will therefore be full independence. I believe that that needs to be independence from all agencies involved in safeguarding children, but we are not putting that in primary legislation because we believe that statutory guidance will provide more flexibility. It will give some areas time to find the type of high-quality, trained, independent person we will need. On that basis, and with our clear commitment to independence, I hope that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole will not press the new clause.
	I turn to the hon. Lady's second probing amendment, amendment 67, which is about accountability. We believe that current legislation makes clear the need for accountability in the role of director of children's services, and the Bill will make it clear in the case of children's trust boards. It will also make clear the importance of the children and young people's plan being owned by all agencies in a children's trust. The new targets will be duties on the local authority, but they will be owned by the whole trust. It is important that the individual agencies that are part of a trust are also accountable individually for playing their proper role in it. That is why we do not believe that we need to change legislation in the way suggested in amendment 67. The way in which we have designed the responsibility for the plan within children's trusts meets the hon. Lady's concerns. We will ensure that the regulations under section 17 of the 2004 Act about how that plan is drawn up make it clear where the responsibility for individual actions should lie. We will be able to discuss that with her in the coming months.
	I looked into the matter covered by the hon. Lady's new clause 20 in detail when I read it. Our belief is that, aside from the odd drafting issue about the exact role of the key worker, which we do not need to go into today, the existing statutory law and guidance in the Children Acts 1989 and 2004 achieves the objectives that she sets out. The statutory guidance is clear that section 47 of the 1989 Act should always involve a social worker undertaking separate interviews with the child wherever appropriate. It is also clear that seeing the child alone is not enough, and that the child must be observed interacting with their family and, if appropriate, with other adults or care givers. We will revise that statutory guidance later in the year to make it absolutely clear that if at any point the parents refuse to allow the child to be seen alone, the local authority has powers under that Act to apply for an emergency protection order to require parents to comply with any request to produce the child. The Act authorises the removal of a child in those circumstances if necessary. Current statute therefore provides the powers that the hon. Lady seeks in the new clause.
	Turning to amendment 15, I place on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) and the Joint Committee on Human Rights for their contribution and their positive comments about the education of young offenders. We believe that in the Bill, and more generally through the children's plan, we are meeting our obligations under the convention on the rights of the child. We appreciate the scrutiny and proposals of the Joint Committee. I would not want a piecemeal approach that applied the convention differently to children's trusts from the way in which we approach the obligations of schools, local safeguarding children boards, children's centres and GPs. We need wider discussion on the Green Paper on rights and responsibilities, which is coming up shortly, but I do not believe that pursuing the amendment would be the right thing to do at the moment.
	The Conservatives' amendment 54 suggests that more bodies join the children's trusts in addition to the list of groups that are already on them, which is being extended in the Bill. It proposes that a series of groups should join, the first of which is short stay schools. Such schools have a management committee, which takes on some accountability and responsibility separate from that of the local authority, and I am happy to repeat the commitment made by the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), that we will add the management committee of short stay schools to the list of relevant partners in the guidance that is coming shortly.
	Sure Start children's centres do not have governance arrangements separate from the local authority, like those of a school. They are more places where a range of services are brought together. We therefore think it more appropriate for the local authority to be the representative body on the children's trust rather than individual Sure Start children's centres. In the case of extended schools, the situation depends on how the private and voluntary sectors and schools provide the services in question. It would be hard to define which body other than the local authority should represent extended services on a children's trust.
	Finally, in the case of GPs, we made it clear in the child health strategy that there would be a lead GP with children's expertise on the children's trust in each area. Our view, and that of the Secretary of State for Health, is that extending the duty to co-operate to GPs at this stage would weaken rather than strengthen our ability to ensure health engagement. The primary care trust, as commissioner, should play that role. I hope that I have covered the points that have been made about Opposition new clauses and amendments, so I shall return to the new clauses that I have tabled.

Tim Loughton: Before the Secretary of State moves on, can he quote for me where Lord Laming says that the primary purpose of ContactPoint is child protection? That is not what he has said, but it is what the Secretary of State asserted. Also, can he tell me why he has not given the same reasons for being against the full publication of mental health reports in homicide cases that he is now applying to serious case reviews? Why are the two different?

Edward Balls: I have tried very hard to proceed on these matters in a consensual way, and I have consulted the hon. Member for Surrey Heath and many others on them. I wish we could have agreement on all of Lord Laming's recommendations, but all the central recommendations that were put forward are being opposed by the hon. Gentleman. I regret that, but we need to move on. I will read again what was said about ContactPoint:
	The new ContactPoint system will have particular advantages in reducing the possibility of children for whom there are concerns going unnoticed.
	That is what Lord Laming says in his reportthat it will have particular concerns to keep children safe. I believe that keeping serious case reviews confidential is vital to keeping children safe. The reason I do so, as I have said, is that that is the view of Lord Laming, the NSPCC and the deputy Children's Commissioner. They have advised me on such matters, and I am taking their advice.

John Hayes: It is good to make my first contribution on Report on this important Bill.
	New clauses 1 and 11 reflect the profound concerns that exist up and down the countryI will not go as far as to say that there is fear, but there is certainly profound concern, disappointment and uncertaintyabout the Government's freeze on capital projects in further education. They also relate to fundamental principles enshrined in the Bill, the first of which is the ability of providers to deliver an entitlement to apprenticeships.
	You will understand, with your considered view about such matters, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that apprenticeships are critical to rebuilding the nation's skills. FE colleges play a crucial role in delivering apprenticeships, and their facilities and resources are central to that purpose. A fundamental part of any apprenticeship framework is the training provided off site, which frequently takes place at an FE college. The 361 FE colleges in England do an incredibly important job. It is perhaps appropriate at this point to pay tribute to them and to the people who work in them because they make such a big difference to so many lives. They educate and train more than 3 million young and older learners each year, including about 750,000 16 to 18-year-olds. That is more than school sixth forms, private schools and training providers.
	The new clauses are relevant to the transfer of responsibilities resulting from the division of the Learning and Skills Council into three new bodies: the Skills Funding Agency, the Young People's Learning Agency and the National Apprenticeship Service. Some people have described the Bill as a bureaucratic muddle. The British Chambers of Commerce made that very remark during the witness sessions that we enjoyed before the Committee stage of the Bill. Others have described it as opaque, obtuse, obscure and a missed opportunity. These new clauses attempt to go some way towards improving a very imperfect product.
	New clause 1 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to commission a report on the FE college buildings and facilities that are so vital to delivering the training necessary to build the skills that we need. New clause 11 would place a duty on the chief executive of Skills Funding to provide a report on the progress of applications by FE colleges for capital projects.
	The reasons for the new clauses have become all too clear recently as a result of the gross mismanagement of the FE capital programme. I do not entirely blame the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon), for that. I still regard him as a young man of promise, although many in the House regard him as merely a young man of promises. As he knows, I have defended him, on the Floor of the House and elsewhere, against some of the assaults that have been made on him from all quarters, not least the FE sector itself when it found it was facing disappointment and disillusion resulting from the freeze on FE capital projects.
	After many months of uncertainty, the Government announced in March that they would be freezing the approval process for 144 college building projects. Seventy-nine of the frozen colleges had already received agreement in principle and were awaiting approval in detail, which is the final stage of the approval process. To be considered for approval in detail, the colleges would already have had to secure planning permission and put together a full project brief. That involves not only the college staff but many other agencies, including those involved in designing the buildings, putting together the necessary infrastructure plans and project-managing the process. Many others have been affected detrimentally by this cruel freeze. The colleges have therefore incurred considerable costs in order to reach that stage of development.
	The other 65 frozen colleges are waiting for approval in principle. Some have already assembled a project team and put money towards preparing their bid. In my area, Boston college is in just that situation. It provides an outstanding service to many young people and adults from my constituency. In the areas neighbouring my constituency on the south side, Peterborough regional college and Stamford college are also both affected by the freeze. The new clauses would go some way towards ensuring that such matters would be identified and dealt with at a much earlier stage than they have been thus far.

John Hayes: I will not give way again until I have made a little progress. As well as that commitment, I hope we have extracted an ongoing commitment that, as new cases emerge, they will be dealt with appropriately. I say to the Minister, and I do not say it lightly, that many of the colleges at a much earlier stage of the process have well established bids. A number of colleges with which we have been in discussions as a result of their fears about these matters have made it clear that although they have not secured approval in principlestill less approval in detailthey have been planning a capital project for a very considerable time with the knowledge, approval and encouragement of the Learning and Skills Council. If the Minister has a better idea of the scale hereboth the breadth and depth of his problemand is prepared to underwrite the necessary capital commitment here and now, I will happily give way to him again. Certainly what has been offered so far goes nowhere towards that kind of financial commitment.

John Hayes: We have heard that once already, Mr. Deputy Speaker. What I was actually asking the Minister for was a further assurance that those colleges that have gone a long way down the road towards putting capital bids and projects together will receive the sort of support they need. If these new clauses were in place and the Government had agreed to their addition to the Bill, we would not, frankly, be in the position that we are, with my having to extract these promises from the Minister, because a report would have been brought in good time, anticipating much of the problem that we are now dealing with. I happily give way to the Minister one final time, but then I must make some more progress.

Si�n Simon: I have to explain to the hon. Gentleman that he has not extracted anything, as all this information is clearly on the record. The problem is that there is a greater expectation of funding out there than can possibly be funded. We obviously cannot commit to funding the unfundable commitments of the LSC; what we have committed to, however, is that no college will go bust as a result of the LSC's mismanagement.

John Hayes: We will talk a little bit more about how the Government prioritise funding and how they intend to allocate the money that has been announced. I repeat for the benefit of the Houseand, in particular, for the Ministerthat many projects that have not received agreement in principle, still less detail, despite being well worked up, critically important in a regenerative sense to the community and having received encouragement, advice and guidance from the LSC, will not, I suspect, receive any degree of Government help now. That is because they do not fall into the category that the Minister will conveniently identify as deserving cases. I simply do not buy the idea that the Government will get the criteria or the support right or that they will not disappoint a very large number of colleges and learners up and down the country.

John Hayes: I cannot really answer that in my all too brief contribution. I know that Members will want me to go on and on and on, but the House will understand that others may wish to speak. That point does matter, however, particularly in respect of the new clauses that I am supporting, to which I shall now turn my attention in more detail.
	If the new clauses formed part of this Bill, we would know, for example, how much money had been committed in preparing capital bids. The Association of Colleges estimates that colleges have incurred costs of 170 million in planning capital bidsand that is just the colleges we know about. As I have already said, many have fallen between the cracks, as it were. Some 300 million was announced in the budget for FE capital funding, but that is not nearly enough to fund the projects that are now in limbo. We are yet to have clarity from the Government about the criteria that will determine which projects go forward. It is clear that where colleges were in the approval process tells us only so much; we need a much fuller picture of the economic value of individual projects, how far advanced in practice they are and how much colleges and other bodies stand to lose if their bid is not approved.
	This crisis exposes the Government's inconsistencyI hesitate to use the word hypocrisy, Mr. Deputy Speakeras far as capital spending is concerned. It is a crisis entirely of the Government's own making. The Government commissioned Andrew Foster, a distinguished commentator, writer and thinker on these subjects, to write a review. It was he, after all who, at the behest of the Government, wrote Realising the Potential: A Review of the Future of Further Education Colleges in 2005. Sir Andrew Foster concluded that
	senior staff in Dius could have probed more actively the robustness of the forward projections of future funding commitments. Their challenge was insufficiently incisive to uncover ongoing flaws in implementation.
	So we know that Sir Andrew Foster's answer to the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) would be that the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills had a key role to play. When we speak of DIUS, furthermore, do we not speak of Ministers? It would be quite wrong for the buck to stop with civil servants, officials and quangos when it is the politicians and the Government themselves who answer here in this House.
	You will have recognised, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that new clause 11 makes reference to
	an annual report on the... infrastructure of colleges
	and to
	information about which applications for capital funding
	have been approved, which should be broken down in principle and in detail. The provision also makes reference to the key role of the Secretary of State because the report proposed in the new clause must go to him, making a direct link between what is happening on the ground in colleges and what the Secretary of State knows and does on

Stephen Williams: I welcome the new clauses that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) has just spoken to. I met with the new chief executive of the LSC, Mr. Russell, shortly after his appointment. First, we should thank him for his public service in taking on the poisoned chalice of trying to bring some coherence to an organisation that is not only in its dying days, but is dying in a sense of crisis and much public ridicule. Mr. Russell has already commissioned consultants to develop new criteria for an assessment against which college bids can be assessed. Both new clauses would complement that in-house procedure and review.
	In DIUS questions last Thursday morning, this issue came up several times and the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon), was unable to say when the review being undertaken by the LSC will reach a conclusion so that colleges can get some clarity and certainty in this areaperhaps he will elaborate on that todayor how far the 300 million announced in the Budget will go.
	The scale of the problem that we face is indeed large: more than 140 different schemes up and down the country have reached various stages of applicationeither application in principle or detailed approvalwhile others are the subject of early discussions, although they are still incurring costs as part of their bidding. One such college is Star college, which works with adult disabled people. I have visited Star college. It is in the Cotswolds and has been mentioned on several occasions by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws), who has not yet returned to the Chamber, has asked me to mention also Yeovil college.
	I wrote to Mr. Russell on his appointment, asking him to tell me the parliamentary constituencies in which colleges are waiting for detailed approval finally to be granted by the LSC77 parliamentary colleagues have at least one college in their constituency that is at the detailed approval stage. For instance, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) tells me that the bid made by the college of North West London in her constituency is essential for the regeneration of Wembley. My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) has two such colleges in his constituencyColchester institute and Colchester sixth-form collegeand I should also refer to Plumpton college, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), and North Devon college, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey).
	Bournemouth  Poole college is near to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), who has been with us for most of the debate. She tells me that several million pounds have been spent on that college's bidding process so far. I visited the college with my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) in September last year as part of our party conference and saw the excellent training work that was going on there. It is a centre of excellence, in particular for catering. It is a shame if the students of that college are at all uncertain about the future facilities for their courses.

Stephen Williams: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I think I said that there are two formal parts to the process: approval in principle and approval in detail. Many other colleges are involved in early discussions, but have none the less incurred costs. Some have commenced work and are part way through their building programme. Many of us have been shown photographs of part-demolished Barnsley college by the hon. Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Jeff Ennis). I could mention many other colleges on the listfor instance, South Devon college, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders). When he was in the Chamber earlier, he told me that the scheme is worked up and ready to go. Work could start tomorrow and all that is needed is approval to proceed.
	It is not at all clear from the Budget debate, DIUS questions last week and various Westminster Hall debates on the topic how the 300 million brought forward in the Budget will help in the current financial year. It appears from the letter sent by the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills to vice-chancellors and college principals on 22 April that, as well as the 300 million for the current financial year, 2009-10, there will be a planning assumption of a further 300 million a year from 2011-12 to 2013-14. That totals 1.2 billion and rather implies that the capital budget for 2010-11, which is the next financial yearI know that I am mentioning many yearshas been raided to bail the Government out in this financial year. Perhaps the Under-Secretary will confirm whether that is the case, because the 1.2 billion over five years clearly does not correspond to 300 million for each year. One year must be missing, and it appears to be 2010-11, which of course is the year straight after the next general election.

Andrew Turner: I want to highlight the problems that the freeze of the college building problem has caused on the Isle of Wight, although I believe that there should be regulated annual audits in all areas to establish what capital is spent.
	The Isle of Wight College is the only further education institution on the island. For many islanders, it represents the only opportunity to receive further education before entering the workplace. Employers value colleges as a source of training, especially during a recession. As the island has relatively high unemployment, taking a college course can make a real difference to someone's prospects, but all that is now in jeopardy. The freezing of funds promised to the council has not only indefinitely delayed vital renovation work, but cost the college more than 2.3 million in development fees alone. It would have cost a great deal more had the college not benefited from the common sense and prudence of its principal, Debbie Lavincommon sense and prudence that the Government and the LSC evidently lack.
	The Government are guilty on a number of fronts. There is evidence that the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and the LSC knew about a possible overspend as early as February 2008. Mrs. Lavin says that the college was encouraged to continue with the building project until as late as December 2008. DIUS and the LSC were too slow to respond, having had a good eight or 10 months in which to flag up a problem. During that period, collegesblissfully unaware of the impending crisis, and egged on by the national LSCspent money, made plans and, in some cases, tore down old facilities. Fortunately, that did not happen on the Isle of Wight. If the colleges had known then what the LSC and DIUS knew back in Aprilor February2008, they would not have been so hasty. DIUS Ministers and the LSC should not have encouraged colleges to go ahead if they did not have the money to see the projects through. Colleges throughout the country are now paying the price for the delay. Temporary cabins are being hired in which to teach students, and fees for retaining contractors and professional advisers continue to be paid.
	Adding to all the financial woes, the Government are muddying the waters by further complicating an already complex system. The ineffectual LSC is to be abolished, only to be replaced by three new bodies. That has led to further confusion and worry, especially as there is no evidence that the more complicated system will be any more efficient.
	The Government are seeking to gloss over the whole issue with their announcement of 300 million earmarked for colleges. We have not been told where the money will go, but it is clearly an insignificant sum in comparison with the scale of the crisis. This is akin to putting a sticking plaster on a disembowelment. We need transparency in regard to further education funding, so that we all know where we stand. New clauses 1 and 11 will help to clarify the situation for the House, colleges and the public. This sorry affair cannot be allowed to happen again.
	Sir Andrew Foster's independent and damning report on the college building debacle highlights the existence of Government and LSC incompetence at almost every stage of the process. The LSC chief executive did the albeit late but none the less honourable thing, and fell on his sword. Why have not DIUS Ministers taken their responsibilities just as seriously? Or were they and their officials kept ignorant as well? I can tell the House that it was ignorance. The LSC made decisionsor perhaps it is better to say that it did not even make themin a state of failure. That is the problem, and we must put it right.

Si�n Simon: Most of the speeches that we have heard have ranged far beyond the scope of the new clauses. I understand why Members wanted a general debate about the further education sector as a whole, and about the FE funding situation in particular. Those are serious matters which are of great concern to Members throughout the country, to their colleges and college principals, and to the corporations of those colleges. Many of them are represented by lay individuals who might feel very exposed and concerned about the position they are in. I understand that Members are constituency representativesand, indeed, are sometimes Opposition Front Benchers with that job to doand that they will want to make their points and to seek answers from the Government.
	With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I propose to speak initially to the new clauses themselves, which have so far received relatively scant mention in the debate, after which I will move on to try to respond to some of the general issues, and in so doing I will be at your mercy as to how wide and general I may stray and for how long you think it will be appropriate for me to carry on speaking.

Si�n Simon: As the hon. Gentleman said, one of the key conclusions of the Foster report is that the programme should have been much more needs-based, and it is clear that it must be more needs-based in future. The reason why it was not needs-based was not because good information did not exist about the state of the FE estate; that information was being collected. The problem was that it was not used effectively. New clause 1 sets up the paraphernalia to collect that information, but that paraphernalia already exists. Good information already exists, but the right things were not done with it. New clause 1 is therefore not the answer to this problem.

Si�n Simon: I shall move on to new clause 11. The new clause also raises the question of parliamentary scrutiny, but it is also superfluous because its measures already exist in the Bill. Paragraph 7 of schedule 4 requires the chief executive of skills funding to publish an annual report and accounts covering expenditure on all areas, including capital. That report will be laid before Parliament. I hope that that, together with the commitment of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to return to the House with a statement in due course, will give Members some reassurance about the level of parliamentary scrutiny. If the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) wants to have a debate in Government time, he will, as he knows, need to come back on a Thursday and talk to the Leader of the House rather than memy pay grade is considerably beneath considering such matters.
	We do not need new clause 11 in order to have transparency and parliamentary accountability, and we do not need new clause 1 in order to have good information about the state of the FE estate.
	Let me turn to the general points that Members have made. The hon. Members for South Holland and The Deepings and for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams) raised the question of colleges that have not received, but have applied for, approval in principle. There are currently 79 colleges that have received approval in principle and 65 that have applied for it and have not received it. The points they make about the great amount of workand potentially of expenditure, as well as of investment of time and energythat will have gone into reaching the stage of submitting the application, which is itself a huge, thick pile of documents, are very well understood. We have been very clear in our discussions with the new leadership of the LSC that the colleges in that position will be treated broadly in a single pool with the colleges that have already received approval in principle. All of them will be deemed to have a difficulty which the LSC, under its new leadership, needs to help them to deal with.
	Several Membersthe hon. Members for Bristol, West and for Isle of Wight come to mindmentioned the 300 million of new cash that was announced in this financial year to enable us to put through some of the most urgent and high-priority cases. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight said that it glossed over the entire issueI believe that the rich phrase he used was that it was a sticking plaster on a disembowelmentwhereas the hon. Member for Bristol, West said that it was a political scorched earth policy. Naturally, I cannot accept any of those colourful descriptions. None the less I am clear about the fact that 300 million will not solve this problem, whose magnitude is much greater. I am not attempting to gloss over the entire issue, and I do not pretend to have solved the problem or put the matter to bed with 300 million. What the 300 million will enable us to do is to put forward, this year, in decisions that will be made in a small number of weeks' timein the early summerthe most urgent and high-priority cases across the country. That will still leave many colleges needing certainty and clarity about their future.

John Hayes: Interestingly, the Minister, at last, gives us some detail about this matter, for which I am grateful. We should have been given more detail sooner, but I understand the reasons why he has not been in a position to do thatas he says, this is not at his pay grade level. Will he tell us whether those high-priority cases will be drawn from colleges that have already received agreement in principle and colleges that are at an earlier stage of development? If not, what criteria will be used?

Si�n Simon: As ever in this evening's debate, the hon. Gentleman congratulates himself on having extracted from me something that has been clear and on the record for weeks, if not months, and that I have said dozens, if not hundreds, of times. As I just said, the colleges that have received approval in principle and those that have applied for it but not necessarily received it will all be viewed in the same group when consideration is given to both the urgent and high-priority funding and the later down the line funding. It is probable that colleges that have applied earlier and secured approval in principle are more likely to be further down the road and I would be surprised if more of them were not more urgent and high-priority immediate cases when compared with those that have yet to receive approval in principle. However, it is clear, and has been for some time, that both those categories will be eligible to be considered for the urgent and high-priority immediate funding, and to go into the second pool of cases that will go through the same process of prioritisation.
	As for how those priorities were drawn up, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knowsI am loth to say this, because I know that he will intervene in any moment to rejoice at having dragged this out of me, although it has also been clear for some timethe LSC, in partnership with the Association of Colleges, set up a reference panel and, between them, they have agreed, or are in the process of finalising within the next week or two, a set of criteria and processes that are to be open and transparent, and that I hope the whole sector can buy into, by which the prioritisations will be decided. The first criteria will be readiness, urgency and whether the case is high priority. In the second round, the same criteria will apply, but without the criterion of readiness.
	Hon. Members have also mentioned the amount of money already committed in preparing bids. That is a problem for colleges and it is an issue about which college principals and corporation leaders feel worried and exposed. I am sensitive to that, and we have made it clear to the LSC that it will need to be sensitive to the difficulties in which its mismanagement of this programme have put college leaderships. It has retained an independent firm of property consultants, who are currently consulting all the affected colleges with a view to reporting back to them what level of support they could individually expectagain, that will take place within the next few weeks.
	I could go on talking about these matters indefinitely, but I am conscious of the fact that other hon. Members wish to discuss this new clause and others, and that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings has to follow me so this matter is by no means close to conclusion. I am sympathetic to the desires of hon. Members to have a wide-ranging debate about this matter and I have tried to address some of the main issues in the time available, but I do not think it is appropriate for me to go on talking indefinitely. I am sympathetic to the intentions of new clauses 1 and 11, but both of them are dealt with in the Bill or within existing practice and are, therefore, superfluous. On that basis, I know that the hon. Gentleman, with his customary sagacity and courtesy, will be inclined not to press the new clauses to a Division.

John Hayes: The Minister has done his best to deal both with these new clauses and the crisis that is not entirely of his making, given that he is a newcomer to his Department. He will understand why Conservative Members and, indeed, Members from across the House, are so exercised about this capital funding crisis. Joseph Conrad said that reality beats fiction out of sight, and nobody could have made this up, could they? This is stranger than fiction. The Minister first says that colleges might be allowed to go bankrupt and then says that they will not be able to do so.

John Hayes: What the hon. Gentleman said on the Today programme, on blogs and on Twitter is probably not worth dwelling on now because to do so would not be in his interests or those of the House. We certainly know that Sir Andrew Foster, who was asked by the Government to look into these matters because they were so concerned about where things had got to, concluded in his report on the crisis that it had been predictable and probably avoidable. We know that 79 of the colleges that have had their capital bids frozen had already received agreement in principle and were simply awaiting agreement in detail, and we know that the 300 million that the Government have committed will not do the job.
	These new clauses are as clear as crystal. They would help a Government to get to a position where the circumstances in which this Government find themselves would be most unlikely to occurI shall not say impossible, because incompetence can reign regardless of law. However, law must at least be in place to mitigate the results of the sort of incompetence, miscommunication, failure to act and lack of accountability that lay at the heart of this crisis.
	We propose in our amendments that the House receives reports, with properly collected information from across the country, that match the state of the college estate to the bids for capital funding. It is remarkable that the Minister says that that information is already collected. He says that the Government have all the knowledge that they need about the state of FE colleges and the level of resources they enjoy. My goodness, if they have all that information but do not match it to bids for capital funding, what sort of organisation is the Learning and Skills Council and what sort of Ministers have we had who have not held that body to account? After all, it is a Government agency and there must be some sort of line of report, even if the Minister was not himself in office at the time.
	It is essential for the good of our colleges that we avoid similar crises in the future. It is essential for good governance that we have the right information, and it is certainly essential for the further education and training needs and skills that our people deserve that we have better Ministers. I wish to press new clause 1 to a Division because I want to test the House's opinion on whether this sort of thing is excusable or whether it thinks, as I do, that it is unforgivable.

Nick Gibb: The Opposition support the establishment of an independent regulator of qualifications and examinations. It was, after all, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) who, when he was shadow Education Secretaryas the position was then known, before the word Education was eliminated from the name of the Departmentsaid:
	It is not acceptable that the QCA, the guardian of our exams, is not independent of the Government.
	By government, we mean the government machine. That is, all those elements of government charged with the responsibility of providing education, training teachers, determining the direction of education policy and the style of pedagogy; all those who determine whether or not, for example, primary education should be child centred; those who determine whether classes should be mixed ability or set by ability; the independent panels of advisers who advised the Government to remove translation from English into French from the secondary modern foreign languages curriculum; or those who advised that the primary curriculum should no longer teach the multiplication or addition of fractions. The exam regulator needs to be independent of all those groups and of anyone who has a vested interest in demonstrating that educational standards have improved.
	Ofqual particularly needs to be independent of civil servants in the education world, both departmental and at local authority level. As Sir Michael Barber points out in his book Instruction to Deliver:
	While the civil service was not party political, it was heavily influenced by the various lobby groups who competed for influence in the Department which thus tended to see issues from the producer angle...Moreover, the lack of ambition which characterised the education service as a whole inevitably affected the Department too.
	It is keeping Ofqual independent from that lack of ambition that is so crucial, as well as keeping it independent of the producer angle.
	That lack of ambition was exemplified by almost the very first act of the newly created Ofqual. In October last year, in response to reports that one of the exam boards, Edexcel, was awarding C grades in its new science GCSE to pupils achieving just 20 per cent., Ofqual was asked to adjudicate after the three exam boards failed to reach an agreement over grade boundaries. Instead of making the three boards rise to the standard of the most demanding, which was AQA, it ordered AQA to lower its grade boundaries to those of the other twolevelling down rather than levelling up. The director general of AQA, Dr. Mike Cresswell, said that he did so under protest and wrote:
	AQA is extremely reluctant to adopt a standard for GCSE Science which is less comparable with the past than it needs to be.
	Ofqual spectacularly failed, therefore, in its first test.
	That all goes to the root of the contradictions that lie at the heart of this policy. On the one hand, the Government are saying that standards have been rigorously maintained over the years and between different exams. On the other hand, they say that an independent regulator needs to be created to boost public confidence. In a letter of September 2007, in which the DCSF set out the new model of regulation of qualifications, the Department states:
	Over the last ten years, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority...has shown robust independence in its work as a regulator and has developed a system for assuring standards which is recognised internationally for its quality and reliability...The hard work of the QCA, and its fellow regulators, means that we can be confident that standards have been maintained.
	If things are so good and rosy, why do we need reform? The document goes on to say:
	Yet once again, this summer, we had a public debate about standards in qualifications and testseven as the QCA provided reassurance that standards had been maintained.
	In other words, how dare the public have a debate about standards when the QCA has provided reassurance. The reforms are not about ensuring that standards are maintained, but about finding a better way to try to convince the public that standards are being maintained.
	Kathleen Tattersall, the new chairman and chief regulator at Ofqual, said in her evidence to the Public Bill Committee:
	Ofqual has been set up...to ensure that there is a better...understanding of the issues and to assure public confidence.
	What Ofqual should be concerned about is maintaining standardssomething that its predecessor regulator, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, singularly failed to do. That is why, in amendment 61, we proposed adding a specific requirement to maintain standards to Ofqual's list of objectives.

Nick Gibb: My right hon. Friend has summarised brilliantly the argument that I was trying to make. It is a huge concern, because as he hints, a huge amount of independent academic research carried out in recent years points to the decline in exam standards over time. To take just one example, Peter Tymms at the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring at the university of Durham has shown that a student who got an E in A-level maths in 1998 would have been awarded a B in 2004. Professor Peter Williams, appointed by this Government, said in  The Observer newspaper:
	Over 20 or 30 years I don't think there is any doubt whatsoever that absolute A-level standards have fallen.
	They have edged south, continuously over a long period of time.
	I think all university academics and a good proportion of sixth-form teachers would agree with my assertion.
	That and other evidence has been available for several years now, but what concerns us is the attitude to such evidence expressed by Ofqual's chief regulator in her evidence to the Standing Committee. When asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker),
	Does Ofqual believe that there is grade inflation in A-levels and GCSEs?
	she replied:
	Ofqual will take the evidence that it has and that comes to its attention to make any pronouncement, one way or the other, on issues of that kind. That is something that we have not particularly explored and I do not think that it would be appropriate for me to come to a view without full consideration of the evidence.
	Why is the matter one that Ofqual has not particularly explored? When my hon. Friend asked whether Ofqual would explore the issue in future, he received another odd answer from the chief regulator:
	What we will be doing as a regulator is looking at the evidence, particularly where there are any issues of public concern. If that issue is a matter of public concern, clearly we will be seeking evidence on it, but there are a range of other issues where our starting point would always be to look at the evidence and to come to a considered judgment on the evidence.
	Why have the QCA and Ofqual not been looking at the evidence, including that of Peter Williams and the Durham evidence? What did the chief regulator mean when she said:
	If that issue is a matter of public concern?
	What did she mean by if? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) suggests, of course it is an issue of public concern. We read about it in the newspapers the whole time.
	When challenged by my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller), the chief regulator's response was:
	Ofqual has been set up to regulate the system, to get better public accountability for the system, to ensure that there is a better public understanding of the issues and to assure public confidence. That is what regulators do. I do not think that it has been set up to address any specific concerns, such as the one that was just mentioned [ Official Report, Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Public Bill Committee, 3 March 2009; c. 70, Q182 to Q184.]
	or indeed the one raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal.
	The anxiety that that answer provoked was compounded by minutes of Ofqual board meetings that were leaked to a Sunday newspaper. It was clear from those minutes that Ofqual was not sure whether there was any methodology that it could use to compare standards between a non-modular GCSE exam and a modular exam that was being introduced by the QCA. According to the newspaper, the chief regulator said that Ofqual and the exam boards
	need...to arrive at a clearer picture of what is meant by 'maintaining standards' when the structure of qualifications changes.
	That makes one wonder whether Ofqual is the right body for the job, particularly as there are academics, such as Professor Tymms, who could say precisely how to make such a comparison, using a sample of cognitive ability tests. That is similar to the comparison proposed in the second part of the Liberal Democrat amendment 71. Our proposal, set out in new clause 2, is to benchmark comparative qualifications in other countries. New clause 2 says:
	The Secretary of State shall commission a comparative study...of the standards of...GCSEs, and...A levels...with comparable qualifications in each of the jurisdictions of the European Union.
	Of course, the Secretary of State could extend the study to countries such as Singapore and Japan.
	That measure reflects a policy announcement made by my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) in a speech at the Haberdashers' Aske's school, in which he said:
	We have asked Sir Richard Sykes, the former rector of Imperial College and one of our most successful scientists, to review our entire system of assessment and qualifications in this country and we have made it clear that his aim is to ensure once more that our exams are internationally competitive...That is why we would legislate to make the fixing of our exam standards to an international benchmark crucial to our programme of radical reform.

Tobias Ellwood: My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. I wonder whether he has considered the concerns that business has about grade inflation. It is now setting its own exams. Where that is not happening, schools in my areaand the area of the Minister for Schools and Learners, who represents the same county as I doare turning their backs on GCSEs and offering another alternative, namely the international baccalaureate.

Nick Gibb: My hon. Friend makes a valid point that I shall come to in a moment. He is right: people across the board are concerned about some of the public exams on offer. McDonald's, Flybe and other major international companies are taking measures, and we support those measures, but it is interesting that they feel that they have to do so to get the quality that they seek from qualifications.

Nick Gibb: I understand that point, but there is a concern in the private sectora feeling that it should not rely on the Government to provide the kind of qualifications that it might wish to use, and that it is time that it got on with its own qualifications. I could also have cited academic qualifications that are comparable with GCSEs and A-levels. I will come to those in a minute.
	Amendment 63 would require Ofqual to publish a report on standards in A-levels and GCSEs over the past 20 years. It is important, if we are to be able to maintain standards over the next 20 years, that we have a proper, honest understanding about what has happened to our public exams over the past 20 years. Amendments 61 and 62 amend the objectives of Ofqual to ensure that it maintains standards. That phrase is not in the standards objective as drafted, and that is a serious omission. Finally, amendment 60 ensures that Ofqual conducts its work in a timely manner. It is a frequent complaint of exam boards that delays at regulator level leave them insufficient time to develop their exams.
	As my hon. Friends have said, public confidence in the integrity of our public exam system is at an all-time low. Those in the independent sector are flocking to the more rigorous exams, such as the international GCSE, the Pre-U, which was developed to deal with concerns about the A-level, and of course the international baccalaureate. The way to deal with that lack of confidence is not public relations and repeated assurances, but concrete work to ensure that standards do not decline. The new clauses and amendments tabled by my hon. Friends and by me will go a long way to helping Ofqual to provide the rigour that is sought by the public.

David Laws: The Bill contains much that is unwanted, unnecessary or both, but the clauses, new clauses and amendments that we are debating should be the most important and beneficial part of it. Unfortunately, we share many of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) regarding the nature of the Ofqual that the Government have chosen to establish.
	Anyone interested in education ought to seek an objective understanding of what has happened to standards over a period of time. Indeed, it is difficult to have a meaningful debate about education and education policies without having an understanding of and agreement about what has happened to educational standards. We have heard from the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton about the disagreements about what Government statistics mean and about what has happened to standards over the past 10 or 20 years, and those concerns are echoed in the report on testing and assessment by the Children, Schools and Families Committee which was published last year and which received all-party support. I refer the Minister to paragraph 162, in which the Committee concludes that
	the measurement of standards across the full curriculum is presently virtually impossible under the current testing regime because national tests measure only a small sample of pupils' achievements; and because teaching to the test means that pupils may not retain, or may not even possess in the first place, the skills which are supposedly evidenced by their test results
	A damning criticism if ever there was one of the existing testing regime.
	In paragraph 166, the Committee concludes:
	It is highly questionable whether a claim can validly be made that A-levels have remained at a consistent standard over a period as long as 20 years or indeed anything like it.
	There are further criticisms in paragraph 171 about the difficulties of reaching a conclusive view on the issue of grade inflation and thus what we should conclude about what has happened to educational standards over the past 10 or 20 years.
	That is of fundamental importance because the Government's view, and their gloss on the statistics, is that there has been a staggering improvement in educational standards over the past 10 years, and perhaps even longer. In some parts of the country, the improvement in, for example, GCSE scores is quite breathtaking on paper. If it is true that there has been an improvement in standards of that magnitude, it is extremely important, and it has all sorts of implications for policy. However, if the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton is correct in saying that we cannot rely on those statistics, and if the Select Committee is right in its criticisms, we are in a difficult, and very different, position, which is presumably why, in paragraph 186, the Select Committee recommends that there should be a greater use of sample or cohort testing to establish what has truly happened to educational standards over time, and to make those judgments invariant to changes in the structure of qualification, and thus to restore public confidence in standards.
	We discussed in our debates in Committee, and previously, our great disappointment that the Government did not take up the Select Committee proposal and, instead, in their response to the Select Committee report, made it clear that they rejected not only the use of sample testing to measure educational standards over time but, as they state in paragraph 50 of their response, that in their view,
	Ofqual's role is not to monitor education standards as a whole; it is to regulate the qualifications and assessments which are one of the means by which standards are measured.
	When we look at the measures in clause 126 that deal with Ofqual's objectives, we discover on careful reading that what at first appears to be an impressive list of objectivesthe qualifications standards objective; the assessments standards objective; the public confidence objective; the awareness objective; and the efficiency objectiverequires Ofqual to make judgments of levels of attainment in comparable regulated qualifications, and in comparable assessments, which is not in any way a guarantee that, as the nature of those assessments changes, we will have a reliable measure of what is really happening to standards.

David Laws: It is indeed an important warning of the risk that arises from the manner in which the Government have established Ofqual, the degree of independence that Ofqual will, or will not, have, and in its tightly defined remit, which are designed effectively to stop it making the judgments about standards that it needs to make. Although the Minister herself, in giving evidence to the Public Bill Committee, suggested that it would be possible for Ofqual to use sample testing, she later qualified that by indicating that that could be used only in the context of the specific objectives in the Bill, which prevent such testing from being used to make judgments about educational standards and changes in those standards over time.
	That is why we tabled a large number of amendments, both in Committee and on Report. Amendment 90 requires comparable international assessments to be made by Ofqual in a way that is similar to new clause 3, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. Amendments 72, 74 and 75 deal with the need to establish a proper educational standards objective in place of the long list of objectives that the Government have designated for Ofqual, none of which addresses the fundamental issue of standards, and judgments about standards over time. Amendment 71 seeks to address the soon-to-be-topical issue of the introduction of the modular GCSE, and the impact that it is likely to have on results. We heard some interesting evidence from the Minister and others in Committee about the effect that the introduction of modular GCSEs is likely to have. Many of us suspect that when they are introduced, there will be a rise in GCSE results, even though there will not be an improvement in underlying GCSE standards. We heard ambiguous evidence from the Minister about whether a rise in apparent standards as a consequence of changing to modular GCSEs should essentially be suppressed by ensuring that similar-ability cohorts of children end up with similar GCSE results, or whether in fact the modular GCSE will allow the results to rise in a fairly predictable way that, no doubt, will be used by the Government, if they are still in power, to claim that standards have risen.
	Amendment 73 deals with the need for standardised sample testing, in relation not only to the existing Ofqual objectives, but to the wider standards objective that we believe there should be. Amendment 91 deals with the issue of coherence  v. choice in qualifications, a subject that we touched on in Committee.
	Another fundamental debate is hidden away in the amendments and new clauses before us. That is in relation to what was, when we were debating the Bill in Committee, the famous clause 138 which, under the reordering in the new Bill, becomes clause 139. This is the clause that gives to the Secretary of State the ability to determine the minimum requirements in respect of skills, knowledge or understanding that someone must be able to demonstrate to gain a particular qualification or type of qualification.
	That is a very significant power. It allows a Secretary of State to prescribe, potentially in great detail, what should be in each and every regulated qualification. The example that the Minister gave during our Committee hearing was that particular authors might be considered to have a status that would justify a Minister insisting that they ought to be in, for example, a GCSE English qualification. The same approach could no doubt be sustained to justify the study of particular political theorists in a politics exam, or particular parts of history in a history exam.
	Under cross-questioning from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), the Minister initially said she was not sure whether this was a new power or a power that the Government already had. In her letter to my hon. Friend on 14 March, the Minister confirmed that at present there is no explicit statutory power to determine such mattersin other words, this is a new power being taken by the Secretary of State to prescribe in a potentially very detailed way what should be in particular qualifications.
	That makes us extremely nervous. We agree that there is a role for a Government in a broad-brush national curriculum. We believe it is right that there should be a political view of the broad nature of subjects that should be taught in schools and what should represent the core curriculum. We cannot accept that it should be for a politically appointed Secretary of State to interfere and meddle in the subjects that young people have to study to achieve regulated qualifications.
	In our amendment 80 we seek to include in the Bill what is in the explanatory notes, which the Government have so far resisted writing into the Bill: that these powers should be used only in exceptional circumstances. In some of our other amendments, 88 and 89, we seek to put in place other safeguards to prevent the power being used by the present Government or by a future Government in a way that most people in this country would regard as deeply objectionable.

Graham Stuart: Was the hon. Gentleman disturbed, as I was, by the contents of the letter of 29 April to the Public Bill Committee in response to his questions in Committee? In that letter, the Ministers say:
	It would not be in anyone's interests were Ofqual not to be regulating in a way which recognised its potential to influence the success of Government policy.
	It is hard to follow what that means, but it has a rather creeping sense that the Government aim to force Ofqual to stick to their political agenda.

David Laws: The hon. Gentleman underlines effectively the fact that although the Government initially indicated that Ofqual would be a wholly independent body, it is clear to us, both from the Bill and from the initial comments and judgments that have been made by Ofqual, that this is a body which is as yet far from being independent and may be so for a considerable time.
	The issue is of great concern to us. That is why, as well as supporting some of the amendments to which the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton referred if they are pressed to a vote, unless the Minister tells us that she has reflected again on the matter, we shall seek leave to press amendment 80 to a Division.

John Gummer: There seem to be two important aspects of the Bill which are addressed by the amendments and new clauses under discussion. The first gives me considerable cause for wonderment. I do not understand why it should be so unacceptable to the Government to want to see, in the context of both history and our competitors, how good our qualification and examination system is. I should have thought that anybody running a business, a charity or any organisation would want to know whether the process by which they measured their success was, first, constant in the sense that it was comparable with previous measurements, and secondly, whether it was comparable with the measurements used by other people. It seems very peculiar to refuse to do either thing, and I do not understand why the Government find it so difficult, unless they are too afraid that they might have to say sorry. Is it another example of the Government fearing that an objective measurement might mean that they would have to admit that all their statements about standards having not fallen turned out to be untrue?
	The Minister represents a normal, run-of-the-mill constituency, and I am sure that if she talked to people there she would find that a large number think that standards have fallen. There is no way of reassuring them, except through independent assessment. The Government have recognised that, so they have set up an organisation that, they claim, will be independent. However, they have then proceeded to give to that organisation a series of remits that limit to an unacceptable degree its ability to be independent. Both the Minister's responses to previous, Committee debates, which I have had the pleasure of reading, and her letters show that she has no intention whatever of enabling the body to set up an independent measurement of the success or failure of a particular means of testing and assessment.
	If we live in a society in which more and more employers say, I take no notice of GCSE results and A-level results, it is a society that properly should address that worry. As an employer, I find it difficult to see any continuity of standards in the conduct of those examinations, so I beg the Minister to take seriously the amendments. They are intended neither to criticise the Government, nor to upset the conveniences of her Department; they are designed to ensure that people have confidence in the standards attained. She has admitted that people do not have such confidence, and one does not solve that problem unless one is prepared to enable people independently to measure our present system against what happens in the rest of Europe, with whom, after all, we compete, and to see how far it has changed over the past 20 years. I should be perfectly happy to make it a 20-year period, so that it covered the life of another Government, too, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) would agree. It is not a matter of getting at this Government.
	The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws), who speaks for the Liberals, raised an even more worrying point. If it is true that there is widespread concern about the standards of examination and the standards that young people are now expected to reach, there is even more widespread concern about Government interference in how the education system works. One cannot ignore that, and anybody with a constituency anywhere in the country knows perfectly well that people are worried. If the Department and the Minister want to do something about that concern, they must take seriously the amendments that the Liberal Democrats have put forward.

John Gummer: It is all very well for the Minister to shake his head. He is one of the very few in this Government whom I would trust with anything; that compliment, of course, will do him no good in his party. Do not let him encourage me to be more complimentary, because that would be bad for his futurelimited though it may be in a Government whose future is limited. I say to him that we have had too many examples, and too often, of the fact that the Government cannot manage variety, diversity and difference. They are determined to ensure that we all accept a particular viewtheir viewof almost everything.
	The Government may have set up the inelegantly named Ofqual to reassure the public, but it would be much better if the public heard from the Government the statement that Ofqual can make its own decisions on what it wishes to investigate, compare and contrast; that its remit will be sufficiently wide for those decisions to be of the sort that these amendments seek; and that it is not a supporter of the pusillanimous and peculiar responses that its chairman gave in cross-examination. I do not like people who are supposed to be running a regulator, but cannot answer a question directly.
	I would like the Under-Secretary to look at the answers from Ofgem and other regulators. They are directthose regulators say exactly what they are intending to regulate and know precisely what they are trying to do. I do not think that the person about whom I am talking understands at all what she is trying to door perhaps she understands all too clearly, but does not want to tell us because it is not what the public want.
	I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that I am pleased with his amendments, although I would like them to have gone further. That is because I think that freedom is better than direction; I would rather have a society in which we might be worried that some people teach rather peculiar things than one in which people are afraid lest the Under-Secretary should come down on them for teaching something that they think important.
	We are at the very heart of the public's concern about the Government. The Government cannot say that they are sorry, so they do not want to be measured lest they have to say that they are sorry. They cannot allow people to be various and different, so they have to have reserve powers. They will not say that they are reserve powers; they will not say in the body of the Bill that they will not use them except in extremis. They must have such powers to keep control, because they are a control-freak Government. Lastly, they are a Government who will not listen to the public. I am thinking not only of the Gurkhas, but of everybody in Britain to whom I ever talk on these subjects and who wants to know. If we are wrong and if it is not true that standards have fallen, the Government should be honest and prove it. If they cannot prove it, they should change things so that the situation changes and we can raise standards again.
	Recently, I tried to buy something in a store. The person serving me did not want the extra money I offered so that the change could be simple, because she could not work out what the change should have been except by using the machine in front of her. When I told her that I would give her the one and thruppence, or whatever it was, she said [Interruption.] I said thruppence because the Under-Secretary was asleep at that moment and I wanted to wake her up. In fact, it was 13p extra, so I gave her that money; she could not work out what the change was because it did not tally with what was on her machine.
	Standards have fallen, and the Minister should prove to me that I am wrongmerely stating it will not help. She should allow for an independent assessment. Above all, she should be comparing us with our neighbours, because they are the people with whom we compete. Why will she not do the sensible thing? Is it because she cannot say sorry? Is it because she is frightened of the results of an independent comparison? If not, then give it to us. Why does she continue to refuse to do what the public want her to do?

Tobias Ellwood: I am grateful to have caught your eye at the last minute, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I had not intended to participate in this debate, but I have been prompted to do so by the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), who made a powerful argument about the Government's actions and intentions as regards education. The amount of money allocated to the education budget has doubled, but we have to ask whether we are getting value for money. My right hon. Friend has put his finger on the issue. Have there been any improvements to our education system that are worthy of the amount of money that has gone into it?  [ Interruption. ] The Minister says yes, but when we speak to employers, teachers and parents and ask them their views about what has happened to A-levels or GCSEs, they will say, without any prompting, that there has been a degradation in standards, with grade inflation. The Minister shakes his head, but that is what people out there are saying. It therefore defies logic that this Government, so late in the day in their tenure and in this parliamentary season, still refuse to listen to what the public are asking for, employers are calling for, and we are suggesting here today.
	Let us have a comparison so that we can understand exactly what is happening. We would be happy to stand up and say that we had been proved wrong, but I suspect that we would be proved right in saying that GCSEs and A-levels have suffered. Is it right, in this day and age, that 90 per cent. of people taking GCSEs can pass? There is something fundamentally wrong with that. If someone gets more things wrong than right, they should be heading towards a fail, not a pass, and they should not get a certain number of marks simply for turning up. My right hon. Friend made a valid point: unless we have such a comparison, how can we tell how we are doing in relation to the people against whom we are competing? There are other yardsticks of measurement to say how we are doing in that competitive sphere, in the sense of who is taking our jobswho is coming to work in the UK.
	People educated in the UK are finding it difficult to compete with those educated to the higher levels that we see abroad. That is why schools that choose to examine the current situation and are not happy with it are turning their backs on A-levels and GCSEs and looking towards the more independent, more respected and higher-standard international baccalaureate. I should declare an interest in that I was taught the international baccalaureate, and I believe that it is a superb system.

John Gummer: I am sorry, but the Minister really cannot say that without accepting that if that body cannot compare standards with those abroad and those that we have had before, everybody will continue to believe that standards have fallen. It does not matter how independent it is, it must compare those standards and prove people wrong, or people will go on believing that and we will go on having the nervous scenes that we have had on YouTube and so on.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: If the right hon. Gentleman will be patient, I will explain what I believe will happen. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent Ofqual from making those comparisons, but we are not requiring them to do it in that way.

Tobias Ellwood: The Minister has been very generous, Madamsorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am confusing genders. If there has been no grade inflation, why has it been necessary to introduce the A* grade, which I understand many universities are now obliging students to attain?

Jim Knight: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
	The high quality of debate so far this afternoon reflects that which has been sustained throughout the passage of the Bill. The contributions of hon. Members from both sides of the House have been productive and professional, by and large, throughout the exhaustive and, at times, exhausting sittings that we enjoyed. The Bill is long and complex, but it is also important. Proper consideration and scrutiny have been essential, so I thank everyone who has contributed both this afternoon and throughout the earlier stages.
	In November, we achieved Royal Assent for the Education and Skills Act 2008, which took the bold and historic step of raising the participation age in education, employment or training to 18 from 2015, because nothing could be more important than ensuring that young people have the opportunities to get the skills that they need to succeed. Those opportunities must, of course, be open to all learners, not just the fortunate few, so we supported the raising of the participation age, with a broader range of options at 14 to 19. Those diplomas are introducing new areas of study and new methods of study through a combination of theoretical and applied learning. We have also strengthened existing qualifications at 14 to 19. Now, every learner can find something that captures their interests and plays to their strengths. This is a moral cause and an economic one.

Jim Knight: Tempting as it may be, given the compelling the case for raising the participation age, I am sure that my hon. Friend, as Chair of the Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families, would not wish me to rush ahead of the ability of the system to deliver. It is important that we get the information, advice and guidance right, that the qualifications consistently work across the country and that we have the work force ready to deliver. I do not think that an accelerated timetable would allow us to do that.
	As we face the current economic challenges, this is the time to invest in skills and training that will build a strong work force and a strong economy, and that will secure Britain's place at the forefront of global competition, innovation and productivity. Therefore, in spite of the economic difficulties we faceindeed because of themthis is education's moment. This Bill not only seeks to put in place the infrastructure that will ensure that the system can deliver the historic changes we have made, but supports the moral and economic ambitions of the 2008 Act. It will open up more learning routes to more people and support fairer access to that learning, through an expansion of apprenticeship places and a new right for adults to request time to train to help them to overcome constraints to their learning and develop the skills they need to progress. It will rationalise the national infrastructure, with lighter-touch bodies that will support local delivery, promote excellence and represent the choices and aspirations of learners.
	In particular, the Young People's Learning Agency will be created to support local authorities in their new 16 to 18 funding role, Ofqual as an independent regulator of qualifications and assessment, the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency to take on the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority's non-regulatory functions, and the Skills Funding Agency as part of a new demand-led system of post-19 education and training.

Graham Stuart: I enjoyed the Second Reading of the Bill and sat through Committee, but I am none the wiser about how the right to an apprenticeship place will be guaranteed given that that requires an employer. How will the new National Apprenticeship Service be able to guarantee that employers come forward, especially at this time of recession? We should be careful not to make promises that we cannot keep. Perhaps the Minister can put my mind at rest.

Jim Knight: It is Labour which is guaranteeing the funding and putting in place the infrastructure, through the National Apprenticeship Service, so that we can properly mobilise employers, whoas demonstrated by the support of employer organisations such as the CBIwant to see the expansion of apprenticeships. Certainly, we in the public sector will play our part in expanding apprenticeship provision.
	The Bill will secure more scope for local provision to be tailored to local need. Local authorities will become the single point of accountability for all children's services from 0-19 and children's trusts will be strengthened to provide a stronger base for partnership working and to better support children's wider well-being and development, especially those children with additional needs.
	As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State outlined earlier, the Bill will also implement recommendations made by Lord Laming to strengthen practice in safeguarding and child protection.

Nick Gibb: It must come as a welcome relief to the Minister, after all the chaos of the Bill's passage through Committee, that we have at last come to the Third reading of the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Bill. It is such an appropriately named Bill given that three of the four Ministers responsible for taking it through Committee appear to have been released from their ministerial apprenticeships prematurelytoo soon it seems to manage the complex responsibility of ensuring that the Committee voted the right way on clause 49. The fourth Minister, the Minister for Schools and Learners, though experienced, appears not to have the skills to ensure that he did not lose four successive votes on the trot. And as for children, that role was amply filled by the Government's Deputy Chief Whip whose petulance after losing those votes resulted in his looming presence in the Public Gallery and unnecessarily and expensively running the Committee through the night, finishing the Bill despite there being a full day left in the programme. What about the learning? Well, perhaps Labour Back Benchers on the Committee need to learn that Thursday Committee sittings start at 9 am and that they should get out of bed a little earlier.
	I want to thank my hon. Friends the Members for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) and for Beverly Hills [ Laughter. ] I apologise; I mean for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart). I thank them for their diligent attendance and contributions to the Committee stage, and I also thank our supportive Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin). I also want to thank the two Chairmen, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) and the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) for their patience and expert deliberation, and my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) for her thorough scrutiny of the children's and early years elements of the Bill. Finally, I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) for his scrutiny of the DIUS elements of the Bill and for his charm and eloquence, of which all members of the Committee have grown so fond.
	A Government who were elected on the threefold promise of education will bequeath an education system in which 40 per cent. of children leave primary school still struggling with the basics of reading, writing and maths; in which half the children who qualify for free school meals fail to achieve a single GCSE above a grade D; and in which the number of young people who have left education without a job or a place on a training scheme to go to has soared to a record 860,000. It is an education system about which academics such as Professor Tymms of Durham university have repeatedly provided evidence that literacy tests and GCSEs no longer provide robust evidence of standards and where a student achieving an E in A-level maths in 1998 would now be awarded a B. Over the past few years, that education system has been beset by poor administration: the SATs marking fiasco, the non-payment of education maintenance allowances, the halting of the further education college building programme and, most recently, the sixth-form funding chaos, where the Learning and Skills Council sent out different letters to schools confirming a different level of funding.
	Of course, the Secretary of State is quick to blame othersthe QCA, the National Assessment Agency or the Learning and Skills Council. It is never his fault, or the Department's fault. Perhaps his focus has been on trying to become Chancellor, or Home Secretary, or on partisan politics, or on becoming leader of the Labour party after the general election. It is always the quangos' fault, which is why it is odd that the Bill creates a host of new quangosthe young people's learning agency, the chief executive of skills funding, and the National Apprenticeship Service. As my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) said on Second Reading, this Bill
	reveals the besetting problem of a decaying Government coming to the end of their term: when in doubt, reorganise...Even worse than that, they are now reorganising their own reorganisations, and changing the institutions that they themselves created earlier.[ Official Report, 23 February 2009; Vol. 488, c. 115.]
	The Government claim that creating three quangos from one will slim down bureaucracy but in Committee, Ministers refused to guarantee that staffing numbers employed by these new quangos would not exceed the numbers currently employed by the LSC. However, we certainly welcome the Government's commitment to increasing the number of apprenticeships. My hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings is well known and respected for his advocacy of genuine apprenticeships and, along with our hon. Friend the Member for Havant, he has developed a policy that will mean 100,000 more work-based apprenticeships.
	We support measures in the Bill that give people the right to request time off to train or study. Raising skill levels in this country can only be beneficial to the individual, to their employer and to our economy as a whole, but it is surprising that the Government want to engage in bureaucratic reorganisations just when our economy is at its lowest ebb and when tens of thousands of people will be hoping to retrain for the jobs that we all hope will come when the economy eventually emerges from recession.

Nick Gibb: That measure was introduced in the Budget as a result of yet another fiasco in the administration of funding by the Learning and Skills Councilfiascos including EMAs, capital funding and now sixth-form funding. The LSC is accountable to Ministers, so it is a little rich for him to ask us whether we support his emergency measure to tackle his crisis caused by his lack of oversight. I shall leave the matter there.
	I hope Ministers will keep a close watch to ensure that moving chairs and desks in an office block in Coventry does not become the focus of the Learning and Skills Council, the YPLA and the Skills Funding Agency.
	We support the measures in the Bill that put Sure Start centres on to a statutory footing. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke for the scrutiny that she gave the provisions in part 9 of the Bill, particularly as she did so late into the night on the final Thursday of the Committee, which also happened to be her birthday. She has been, and remains, a firm advocate of Sure Start, but she wants to ensure, as we all do, that its services reach the most disadvantaged and hard-to-reach families in our societysomething that the National Audit Office tells us that Sure Start all too often fails to do.
	We support measures in the Bill that give independence to the exam regulator, Ofqual. Those measures were originally suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) when he was the shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills. A raft of evidence points to falling standards in the rigour and quality of examinationsnot in the rigour or quality of the students or teachers, but in the exams. I have already quoted Professor Peter Williams, who said in The Observer in July 2007:
	Over 20 or 30 years I don't think there is any doubt whatsoever that absolute A-level standards have fallen...I think all university academics and a good proportion of sixth-form teachers would agree with my assertion.
	However, one of Ofqual's first acts was to ask one of the three exam boards, AQA, to lower the grade boundaries in its new science GCSE to conform to the grade boundaries of the other two exam boards. I would have hoped that the approach would have been to instruct the other boards to raise theirs.
	We welcome measures in the Bill to tackle poor standards in schools, particularly those that relate to behaviour. Ofsted reports that 43 per cent. of secondary schools are not good enough, which is a staggeringly high proportion. We know from answers to parliamentary questions that 344 children are suspended from schools in England every day for violence against other pupils. We know that more than 4,000 children under the age of six were suspended from primary school last year. We know that in 2006-07, some 980 three and four-year-olds were suspended for physical assaults against other pupils and teachers. We know that the number of children suspended 10 times or more in a year has tripled over the past four years to nearly 900, and we also know that police have been called into schools 7,000 times to deal with violence. Some of those cases relate to incidents outside the school gates, and some to cases involving disruptive parents, but some cases dealt with incidents inside the school.
	As we discovered in Committee, the Bill makes the involvement of the police in classroom management more likely. The new powers for teachers to search for weapons, drugs and alcohol require the search to be carried out by a teacher of the same sex as the pupil being searched, in the presence of another teacher of the same sex. That requirement for two teachers could be a problem for a very small primary school where there are no male teachers, or indeed in any primary school that has fewer than two male teachers. It could also be a problem in circumstances such as school trips, where there might be just one male teacher. The response that the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), made to those points early on Friday morning, on the final day of Committee proceedings, was as follows:
	our guidance on
	school visits
	says that if a power to search is required, people should call the police.
	I realise that we had been up all night, but it seems absurd for the Minister to suggest that when a teacher needs to search a pupil for stolen items, she should call the police. My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster said:
	As a parent of young children, I cannot imagine how horrified I would be if, having signed the consent forms and allowed my child to go off to the Lake district or wherever, I found that the police had been summoned [ Official Report, Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Public Bill Committee, 26 March 2009; c. 841-43]
	We are also concerned that the power to search is confined to weapons, knives, alcohol, drugs and stolen items. There is nothing in the provision about pornography, or indeed any item prohibited by the school rules, such as mobile phones and iPods. We need to give teachers and heads the powers that they need to enforce the rules of the school, whether they concern adherence to the school uniform rules, a ban on bringing mobile phones to school, or any other rule, such as those regarding completion of homework or standards of behaviour generally.  [ Interruption. ] I may well come to that. There is nothing in the Bill to clarify the law so that the onus is not on teachers to prove that their actions in maintaining order are lawful and proportional. There is nothing in the Bill to protect teachers from false accusations.

Graham Stuart: On Friday I visited Hornsea Burton primary school in Hornsea in my constituencya lovely school of 90 pupils. The only male member of staff is the caretaker, and the idea that that school, founded on warmth and community feeling, should call the police every time that there needs to be search is frankly ridiculous. That is indicative of the poor thought that has gone into so much of the Bill.

Nick Gibb: My hon. Friend makes the point better than I could by citing a specific example from his constituency of Beverley and Holderness. Raising standards of behaviour in schools is key to raising academic standards. Giving teachers the power and protection that they need is key to raising standards of behaviour. While we support the Bill's new powers for teachers to search pupils, it does not go far enough to tackle the endemic problem of persistent low-level disruption in our schools.
	Today, the Prime Minister heralded yet another education White Paper and therefore yet another education Bill. However, it is not the number of Bills that builds a quality education system; it is the direction of policy. The Prime Minister says that he wants to give more power to parents, but today's announcement is not about more power to parents; it is about one particular parent wanting to cling on to power. The Opposition will not oppose the Bill tonight, but it is clear that if we want a real rise in educational standards in this country, what we need is not another Bill from the Government but a change of Government.

David Laws: I, too, begin by thanking all those involved in the scrutiny of the Bill, including Ministers who were, as ever, very patient in Committee. They accepted many interventions and, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) said, gave the Opposition a great deal of amusement on the morning of 26 March as they tripped over a number of their own new clauses and parts of the Bill.
	I would particularly like to thank all the staff and others in the House, including the departmental staff who stayed for our very long sitting on 26 March, which lasted overnight into 27 March. They could not go home for a few hours in the early morning to clean up, but had to stay in the House because of the rather odd behaviour of the usual channels on the Government side. We very much appreciate the fact that they did so. I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams) and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) for their support and for their proactive approach throughout proceedings on the Bill, although they had the good sense to leave before the overnight sitting on 26 and 27 Marchthey did not, I think, anticipate the length of that sitting.
	I should like to make three points in conclusion. First, there was a rather bad-tempered debate earlier on child protection and child well-being. It was a pity that it was so intemperate on both sides, because it is an extremely important issue, which we ought to deal with in the mature way my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole dealt with it. We were surprised when we heard that the Government were going to introduce three new clauses at short notice. Two of those new clauses do not cause us particular concern, but new clause 22, which introduces a new targets regime is very significant indeed. Although we did not oppose it today, we want to find out a lot more about it before deciding whether to support it in another place. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families for saying that he is happy for my hon. Friend and others to sit down with his departmental officials and perhaps Ministers to discuss the measure before it goes to another place, as it is important that we deal with the concerns that my hon. Friend set out very clearly.
	On the issue of child protection, I am disappointed by the insistence of the Secretary of State on keeping the substance of the serious case review secret. He knows that no Liberal Democrat Member has any problem with the notion that certain parts of serious case reviews should not be published. I can think of one page of the baby P serious case review that I certainly would not want to put in the public domain. When he kindly invited a number of us to look at that serious case review, I made notes on what I considered to be the significant parts of it. When I passed those notes to his departmental officials to find out how much was already in the public domain, or how much was not in the public domain, so I could not use it, all the points that I considered to be significant concerning the way the baby P case was handled, were, according to the officials, not in the published version of the serious case review, and not in the public domain. I therefore question whether on the basis of the selective information that is published we can understand fully what happened in such cases. I believe that there is a middle way whereby the bulk of the reports can be published and small portions excluded. None of the bodies cited by the Secretary of State has commented on that issue.
	Secondly, I wish to make an observation on the Bill, which includes, particularly in the parts relevant to the Department for Children, Schools and Families, a ragbag of measures, which suggests a lack of direction, particularly in the DCSF education portfolio. I am genuinely disappointed that on the subject of Ofqual, where the Secretary of State has taken a welcome step by introducing this new organisation, the Government have not gone much further in setting up what would be an objective standards regulator, rather than a body that will simply seek to regulate existing qualifications.
	The Secretary of State must know that if the intention behind the establishment of the body is to end the annual debate where the Schools Minister and others have to pop up on TV in the middle of August to comment on standards of GCSEs and A-levels, it will not work. It will not work because the Government have set up Ofqual in a very limited form and not given it the ability to comment on educational standards in a way that could allow all those interested in the education debate in this country to understand what has happened to educational standards over time. Without that basic understanding, we have little chance of having policy that is informed by fact, rather than dogma.
	Although we were not able to debate it today, there is an awful lot in the Bill on the children, schools and families side which adds to the bureaucracy of schools. The Secretary of State must know that individuals whom he greatly respects, such as John Dunford of the Association of School and College Leaders, have been highly critical of much that is in the Bill on the new complaints procedures, the regulations surrounding the use of force, and the search powers. All those bring in extraordinary bureaucratic burdens which head teachers object to and which will make their job in schools much more difficult.
	I ask the Secretary of State to reflect on how those proposals and the impact that they will have on schools square with what the Prime Minister talked of today in his rather drab education speech, in which he spoke about a White Paper that will contain proposals to reduce the burdens on schools, and about rationalising the statutory duties, correspondence and guidance that schools receive. The effect of much that is in the Bill in the children, schools and families area will be to impose new bureaucratic burdens on schools. Issues such as the use of force could make the job of head teachers and teachers more difficult, potentially even making them less willing to intervene in circumstances where the use of force is necessary.
	Finally, an aspect of the Bill that showed up the incoherence of Government thinking in terms of accountabilityI hope this will be dealt with in the White Paper that is to comeis that of school oversight. We were told that the young people's learning agency was being established to cover the academies programme because, in a nutshell, the Government do not have confidence in the ability of local authorities as commissioners and standard setters at a high level.
	In the west country there will be a tiny number of academies which, owing to the Government's lack of confidence in the oversight of local authorities, will have to be monitored by some regional quango because the Government do not trust the local authority commissioning and oversight process. That is not only extraordinarily wasteful, but a terrible indictment of the existing regime that we ought to depend on for the oversight of 23,500 schools in the country.
	If we cannot trust local authorities to do their job of overseeing schools and as the first tier to hold those schools to account for the standards that they deliver, we have a real problem, not only with the average schools and the better than average schools but with the many schools in this country which are in challenging circumstances and which are performing badly, but which are not academies at present.
	My final comment is about the context of the debate in education. There is a feeling about the Government that they may be coming to their final months in office. Many of us can remember when the Government started the process of public service reformthe attempt to improve public services in 1997. They started with no cash because they were tied into the spending limits that the Conservative Government set. They started with no reform agenda. Indeed, the early mantra was standards, not structures.
	After a while the money started to flow, as the Conservative spending plans were dumped. That led to some improvements, particularly in terms of the capital stock and the staffing in schools. Eventually, there was a change in policy by the Prime Minister, who acknowledged the importance of structures, rather than standards.
	Over the past couple of years, we seem to have gone backwards. The Secretary of State, in his first speech, turned on its head the Prime Minister's comment about the importance of structures rather than just standards. The whole reform agenda has clearly run into the sand, as confirmed by the Schools Minister's extraordinary comments the other day on the proposals to extend the academies programme to primary schools. He described the proposals as sending
	a chill down the spines of parents and teachers
	and leading to an
	opting out of the national curriculum in an unregulated free market experiment.
	I should have thought that Lord Adonis would have felt shivers down his spine at that description of what is, after all, merely an extension of the existing academies programme. There could be no clearer indication that the reform programme in education has come to an end.
	Although the Prime Minister claimed today that he wants to be on the side of spending more and continuing to invest in education, as opposed to being on the side of austerity, we know that the Government's spending plans after 2011 deliver real reductions in total expenditure year on year, and that there will be cuts in capital expenditure of 17.5 per cent. in real terms each and every year beyond 2011. We are almost back to where we started in 1997, returning to an era of austerity in public services, including education, and no reform programme. If we are to see standards continue to improve, and the gap between youngsters from deprived backgrounds and those from more affluent backgrounds continue to narrow, we will require an awful lot more in policy terms than what is now on offer from this Government.

Phil Hope: I beg to move,
	That for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Autism Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of
	(1) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by the Secretary of State, and
	(2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.
	On Second Reading, it was the will of the House that the Autism Bill should be discussed in Committee. The Bill, introduced by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), will have expenditure implications for the public purse. At the first sitting of the Committee last week, the Chairman confirmed that those implications are significant for certain clauses of the Bill. Therefore, approval for a money resolution is needed before the Committee can engage fully in those discussions.
	I want to stress that the Government, and I personally, share the hon. Lady's wish to improve services for people with autism, whether children or adults. Indeed, with the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), I have made clear commitments to take forward a range of work that will achieve all the objectives claimed to be behind the Bill. We will take it forward in a way that is cost-effective and focused on improved outcomes for people with autism. Our determination to deliver real and lasting change for people with the condition is rock solid.
	Although there was a common aim on Second Reading, I was duty bound to make clear to the House the Government's view that the Bill, as currently drafted, is not the most effective way to achieve the improvements that we all want, and my view on that has not changed. Nevertheless, the establishment of the Committee to consider the Bill gives us a timely opportunity to discuss all the important issues that it raises. I am looking forward to doing so, confident that the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham and I will be able to move forward together in a true spirit of mutual interest and collaboration.
	To do that, however, we need to deal with the money resolution, without which the Committee will not be able to have the detailed discussion of the key clauses of the Bill. On that basis and no other, I commend the resolution to the House.

Cheryl Gillan: I am pleased to speak to the Government's money resolution on the Autism Bill. I thank them and the Minister for tabling the resolution at this stage. As the Minister acknowledged in his brief contribution, it is necessary to progress discussions of the Bill against the background of the House's having passed the money resolution.
	The resolution is also a good sign, in my book, because, as the Minister said, we are continuing negotiations on the content of the Bill. I am optimistic that, with a little give and take on both sides, we may reach agreement on legislation which will give the help that the Minister and I wish to bring to people with autism and their families. Some cost to the public purse is associated with the legislation, and I have been looking at the costs with the National Autistic Society.
	However, it is becoming more apparent that, in this case, a stitch in time will save ninethat, in fact, is what the Bill is all about. Expenditure at an early stage, enabling better interventions and assistance to be given to people with autism, can often help prevent such people from deteriorating into a crisis phase. It is the costs of people in crisis that are often so high, to say nothing of the savings that we may be able to find in terms of the pain and misery that a crisis usually causes the individual and their family.
	The Minister will be familiar with the Knapp report, which clearly laid out the economic consequences of autism; it certainly makes sobering reading. The aggregate national costs of supporting children with autistic spectrum disorder were estimated to be about 2.7 billion per year, most of which was accounted for by the services used. For adults, the aggregate costs amount to 25 billion each year. Of that, services account for 60 per cent. and lost employment and family expenses account for the remainder.
	With an annual cost to the economy of about 28 billion, we must be looking for ways to ensure that the best outcomes are achieved for people with ASD and that the money is well spent. Early interventions can help with behaviour patterns, and increased investment at the right time could reduce the high support costs in adulthood. The report points to the reality that greater availability of early interventions will reduce the impact of ASD on the UK economybut most importantly, it could improve the quality of life for people with ASD and their families. In addition, we will shortly have the National Audit Office report, which will give us a more detailed analysis of the effectiveness of expenditure. I am sure that that will add to the knowledge of what Government need in order to ensure that we improve the quality of outcomes. We need to know how best to spend these resources, and I hope that the Bill will act as a pointer and a general framework for that background.
	On the clauses relating to children, registration of children with autism on the local authority registers should not present significant cost implications. The cost of an administration assistant to receive the register and manage it totals 210,600 on the last Government-prepared estimate, but as the registers already exist in some form, the additional costs should be marginal. The effective implementation of clause 2 would result in an increase in service provision, but it is also clear that there are significant medium-term and long-term savings to be made by providing the appropriate services at the right time to children with autism.
	On clause 3, there is existing funding to deliver support for transition through the Aiming High for Disabled Children transition support programme, but there is a low baseline in many authorities, and the 17 million that is already in the budget can only achieve so much. However, as the funding exists, it does not necessarily form any great amount in extra costs under the Bill.
	On the remainder of the clauses, much of the cost has already been committed by the Department through the announcements that the Minister has made. We are in the process of negotiating amendments to the Bill so that it can reflect the generous offer made by the Government to fulfil some of those promises. I look forward to the Minister supporting the Bill as we progress through the Committee stage, and I am delighted that the money resolution has been tabled to enable that progress to be made.
	 Question put and agreed to.

Norman Baker: I wish to raise a constituency matter relating to rail services to my constituency, and in particular the impact of the new timetable introduced on 14 December last year. It is fair to say that in the years leading up to last December, my constituents were seeing an improved railway service. We had got over the disaster of the existence of Railtrack and seen new rolling stock introduced and the replacement of Connex with Southern. The number of complaints that I was receiving about rail services was reducing, although of course there were still one or two.
	All that was good, but there has been an avalanche of complaints from my constituents since the new timetable was brought in on 14 December. The reason for that is that it is fragile by its very nature and disadvantages my constituents in Lewes, Polegate, Seaford, Newhaven, Plumpton and elsewhere. Part of the discussion that took place before the new timetable came in was about what should happen to the Gatwick Express service. A common viewthe majority viewwas that the dedicated Gatwick Express service should cease, as it occupied platforms with stationary trains at Gatwick, blocking the lines. That was the view of Southern, the current train operating company. The view that it put forward, to which I subscribe, was that the replacement of that dedicated service with trains running through to Brighton or elsewhere would have led to a much more robust and better timetable.
	The Government were in a difficult position, but I am sorry to say that they appeared to take the side of the aviation industry. They allowed the dedicated Gatwick Express service to continue, albeit in modified form with certain trains routed through to Brighton. The consequence has been that the timetable has been thrown into disarray, with grave consequences for my constituents. Notably, there are now trains running through to Brighton that are lightly loaded, while trains running through to Lewes and Eastbourne are heavily overcrowded. The 18.45 dedicated service to Gatwick from Victoria, for example, has a load of less than 40 per cent., whereas the 18.47 train from Victoria to Lewes and on to Eastbourne has standing room only to Lewes, not least because the number of carriages has been reduced from eight to four on that service. What we have seen overallSouthern has confirmed the figures for meis four fewer carriages in the rush hour running through to Lewes and Eastbourne than there were before the timetable changes were introduced.
	I should like to cite one or two examples from constituents for the Minister. I have received a large number of complaints from constituents. It is not possible to do justice to them all this evening, but it is possible to refer to some of them. Southern appears also to have been inundated with complaints, because I am now receiving complaints about its failure to respond to complaints. I did not receive such complaints before, so clearly Southern is overwhelmed with correspondence as well.
	Here is a typical e-mail from one of my constituents in Seaford:
	the decision to reduce the number of carriages on peak time trains from London Bridge has resulted in severe overcrowding on a daily basis. And this at a time when fares have also been increased by well over the rate of inflation.
	As a disabled person, the overcrowding is not just difficult but can some days make it impossible for me to travel and I have to get off the train again due to the severe pain and discomfort. This in turn has a serious impact on my work as I have had to miss several important meetings because of this over the past few months. In view of that I have recently resorted to travelling first classat considerable extra cost of around 75 per weekbut even then I am still unable to get a seat on some days. For example, on the 17.23 from London Bridge on 13th March, the guard announced that 'Due to overcrowding I have decided to decommission the 1st Class Carriages and now any standard class passenger can use this space.' This was the second time this had happened in a week...again on 8th April, all first class seats were taken and there was severe overcrowding in all parts of the train, with the result that I had to stand all the way to Gatwickat which point I had to give up and get off and get a taxi home instead because I was in such discomfort.
	A further complaint by a local pressure group draws attention to the following: short formation as a matter of policy on the 16.17 service from Victoria to Eastbourne, which has now been reduced to four carriages; short formation on the 16.57 service, the following train from Victoria to Eastbourne; the removal of the 17.17 London Victoria-to-Seaford and Ore service; serious overcrowding on the 17.23 service from London Bridge, which is the service to which the other constituent whom I have quoted referred; people standing to Haywards Heath or beyond; and the constant late running of the 18.06 service from Victoria to Eastbourne, which is described by the group as a systematic failing.
	My third example is from a constituent who says:
	The weekday service from Victoria in the rush hour between 17.00 and 19.00 is worse than on Saturdays...There is a grotesque imbalance between services to Brighton (very frequent, long trains) and to Lewes (infrequent, short trains)...As an absolute minimum, the Lewes portion of the 18.47 service should return to at least 8 coaches urgently, instead of the ludicrous 4 at present.
	He makes the following suggestion:
	Why not convert at least one of the early evening extended Gatwick Express services from serving Brighton to serving Lewes/Eastbourne instead?
	He also bemoans the fact that the new timetable from 17 May shows no improvements to the December timetable, despite all the kerfuffle and the protests, in order to rectify the damage that has been done.
	I understand the various pressures that exist, with a lot of trains seeking to use limited infrastructure. Of course there is a need to balance services on different bits of the network. However, I hope the Minister will accept that the new timetable is not working for my constituents in Lewes or for those in Eastbourne. Perhaps naturally, blame has been levelled at the rail company, which is not entirely without blame for how it has handled the matter. However, the crude political reality is that the company is bidding again for its franchise, as are its three competitors, and is therefore not going to tell the Government, Your timetable has caused most of these problems. However, my honest assessment as a local Member of Parliament is that the changes to the timetable that were imposed on Southern, not the timetable that Southern wanted, have caused most of the problems.
	I hope we will get a recognition from the Minister that the problem exists. I hope he will not tell me that it does not exist. If he does, I will send that comment to all the hundreds of people who have contacted me about the matter since the new timetable was introduced. I hope he will accept that there is an imbalance between the services to Brighton and those to Lewes. I hope he will also accept, as a matter of fact, that one of the problems with the Gatwick service, to which I have referred, is that the Government have now imposed a requirement on Southern to run trains through from Brighton to Gatwick, and then on to Victoria without stopping. The consequence is that many of the people from Brighton also feel aggrieved because they want to access East Croydon and Clapham Junction but now have fewer direct trains that will allow them to do that. That leads to more pressure being put on the Brighton trainsand trains from other destinations, including Littlehampton and Eastbournethat do stop at East Croydon and Clapham Junction. People are encouraged to use those trains, which leads to overcrowding on those services.
	Does the Minister have any figures, from Southern or elsewhere, relating to the overcrowding on particular services? Does he see it as his job to get those figures and then to decide that the timetable should be recast, or does he take the view that this is a matter for Southern to sort out with the rolling stock that it has? I hope that he does not take that latter view, although he could doubtless say that Members on both sides of the House accuse the Department for Transport of micro-management. On this occasion, however, I might welcome some micro-management from the Department.
	There is also a problem with the rolling stock. I do not mean with the type of rolling stock, which is adequate. The problem is that there is not enough of it. A new timetable was brought in when there was insufficient rolling stock to operate it, because the rolling stock that had been promised simply had not materialised. Southern was also required to operate extra bits round the edges which had not been part of the original franchise, such as the line to Tonbridge and services previously run by South West Trains that had been abandoned and that Southern had picked up. No extra rolling stock was provided to form those services, yet Southern has been leant on by the Department for Transport to hand rolling stock over to Thameslink and First Capital Connect in order that they can run their services.
	There is an absolute shortage of rolling stock in the south central area. Will the Minister tell me when that shortage will be corrected? I would also like an assurance that when the rolling stock imbalance is corrected, the reduction in the number of carriages running to Lewes, Eastbourne and Polegate in the evening peak will be corrected, and that he will at the very least restore the number of carriages running to Lewes in the evening peak, rather than leaving us four down, as is presently the case.
	This all comes down to a wider problem, albeit one that the Government inherited. The timetable on which the south central franchise is presently operating is essentially the one that was run by British Rail many decades ago. It has been built on in a higgledy-piggledy fashion, with various changes, ever since. The timetable is, to use a well worn clich, no longer fit for purpose.
	There is a desperate need to rewrite the timetable entirely for the south central region, not simply to eliminate the problems that I have identified tonight, and not simply to get more efficiency in the timetable to prevent the delays that are now occurring. Incidentally, the punctuality targets have been woefully missed by Southern since the new timetable came in; they have been way below 75 per cent. on many occasions. If the Government envisage passenger numbers growingI think that they do, and I support them in that objectivewhere will the capacity on the south central franchise come from, 10 years down the track? Under the present signalling arrangements, there are now trains at every train path in the rush hour, but there are no plans for extra tracks. There are also no plans to reconfigure East Croydon, which needs to be done if we are to get more capacity on the line. There are not even any plans to reopen the line between Lewes and Uckfield, which would provide an alternative northbound route from the south coast to Victoria, assuming that we could get the East Croydon bottleneck sorted out as part of the process.
	I suggest to the Minister that one of the cheaper optionsI do not pretend that it is without problems, or that it could be done overnightwould be to reconfigure the timetable entirely, starting with a blank piece of paper. We need to forget the house of cards that was built into the British Rail timetables of the 1960s and 1970s, and to draw up a timetable that meets people's needs. The existing one has been designed to fit in with whatever space is available, with all the problems that that creates. A new timetable would also have the benefit of creating passenger incentives. A further benefit would be an end to timetable padding and the unnecessarily long journey times between Lewes, Polegate, Seaford and London.
	When I was a researcher in the House in the late 1980s, the shortest train journey time from Lewes to Victoria was 49 minutes on a slam-door mark 1 stock train. That rolling stock has been replaced by much faster Electrostar trains, yet the shortest journey time between Lewes and Victoria today is 63 minutes 14 minutes longer than it was 20 years ago. I emphasise that that is the shortest journey it is possible to make; many journeys are considerably longer within the allowed timetabling. For the reasons I have given, part of the problem is that the Government, Network Rail and the train operating companies have built a timetable on shifting sandsan unsafe and insecure base on which to build a timetable. It is also the case that this problem muddies the waters and lets train companies to pad timetables and allow themselves extra time to reach destinations in order to meet their punctuality targets.
	How can it be, for example, that the normal time allowed to get from Clapham Junction to London Victoria on my service is nine minutes, yet the journey time back from London Victoria to Clapham Junction is six minutes? I am not aware of any particularly severe gradient on that journey; it is simply the rail company building in three minutes of spare capacity to give itself time to get there and meet its punctuality targets. While punctuality was a problem, as it certainly was four or five years ago, perhaps that made some sense, but we should now concentrate on journey times, particularly in commuter land.
	Outside commuter areasthis applies to the west coast main line, for examplethere is competition from air travel and, in a sense, that incentivises a train company to get journey times down, but there is no such incentive on commuter lines, so the Government and the Office of Rail Regulation should intervene to ensure that journey times are not absurdly long simply to enable train companies to meet their punctuality targets. As I say, the poor timetable itself is what allows that particular problem to be masked in a way that it should not be.
	There are other changes that a new timetable should bring along with itincluding, for example, an hourly service to Plumpton. Over the years, I have managed, working with others, incrementally to increase the number of trains to Plumpton station. They used to be for rush hours only, but now they run by and large throughout the day, but still with a three-hour gap in the middle. Why is that gap not filled? Why cannot we simply have one train an hour; even the faulty timetable we have at the moment would allow that, yet we have seen no progress from Southern on that matter.
	Worryingly, the new franchise arrangements specify the old timetable rather than the improved one to Plumpton, so that raises the possibility of further cuts to, rather than an improvement in, services to that station. Will the Minister specifically look at the situation in Plumpton and see what he can do to ensure an hourly service for my constituents? I appreciate that the Minister may not be able to answer this particular point and one or two others I have raised tonight, but if so, I hope that either he or his noble Friend Lord Adonis will drop me a line with answers to any specific questions not addressed tonight.
	Lastly, let me say that I am a supporter of the railways. I believe in getting people on the trains for environmental and social reasons. I also by and large welcome the direction of travel in which the Government are engaged; it is something that I mostly support. I believe that the Rail Minister, Lord Adonis, is doing a particularly good job, and I am happy to say so in public, on the record and in the House. Over the years I have been MP for Lewes, I have seen a steady improvement in the quality of rail services to my constituency, but that improvement came to an end in December in a sort of own goal by the rail industry and the Government, so I am now asking the Government to recognise the problem and to try to correct it.
	As a minimum, we need an increased number of carriages to Lewes in the rush hourat the very least, back to the number there were before the timetable changed in December. We need more rolling stock on the 18.47 in particular, as it is standing room only all the way to Lewes on some occasions. We need to redress the balance of carriages between Lewes and Brighton, and we need a commitment, either from the Government or from Network Rail or the ORRI do not mind who it comes fromthat when the timetable is rewritten for December, these matters will be taken on board. There should also be an overall commitment to a complete rewrite of the timetable for the south central region; the Sussex route utilisation strategy now under way provides the opportunity to do that. I say to the Government that they have made some real improvements to rail transport, so it is such a shame to have gone backwards now, as we have as a result of the December timetable. I look to the Minister for his help and support in correcting that.

Paul Clark: At the outset, I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) on securing this debate about rail services on the Brighton main line and the effect of the timetable changes on his Lewes constituents.
	The hon. Gentleman acknowledged the substantial investment that has gone in and benefited many towns in Sussex, where, 10 years ago, there was a shabby service provided by the 40-year-old, slam-door rolling stock to which he referred. How they rattled and bumped around the county, providing a poor service. Over these past 10 years, however, we have seen improved services and better rolling stock, as he recognised.
	Many of the services and the rolling stock operating in Sussex use some of the 744 new vehicles that have been on the Southern network since 2003. They are modern, air conditioned and fit for purpose for 21st century travelling. However, I equally recognise the hon. Gentleman raising an issue that he refers to as timetable padding. I acknowledge that issue as one he has followed up on a number of occasionsindeed recently, in a letter to my noble Friend the Minister of State.
	The hon. Gentleman referred in his letter, as he did in the debate, to the time taken to complete journeys, saying that
	new...rolling-stock... ought, all other things being equal, to have reduced journey times.
	But of course, all other things are not equal, because there are more trains, more passengers, greater demand and additional services that are providing a service to his constituents. Indeed, between 1998 and 2007, patronage in the Sussex route utilisation strategy area increased by some 45 per cent. That is a great success story for Government policy towards investing in what is fundamentally important in our national rail system, as well as the provision to make it safer, more effective and more efficientadditional resources and seats on those trains to meet the requirements of the travelling public. However, work has to be undertaken to manage that demand, which brings with it certain issues.
	I believe that the travelling public would prefer a timetable that tells them a reliable time for their arrival at the destination they want, rather than shaving two or three minutes off their journey. They want reliability and affordability. For evidence of that, I look to the major overhaul undertaken by South West Trains in December 2004, which introduced extended, not shortened, journey times, as well as features such as regular repeating service patterns. That timetable change achieved a significant improvement in punctuality, accompanied by a sharp rise in passenger satisfaction ratings.
	A consultation exercise was undertaken to establish what stakeholders wished to see in the new south central franchise, which is due to commence in September. Few respondents placed importance on journey time reductions. The majority commented on the things that matter to themcapacity, service reliability and passenger informationas the most important issues. They want to know that trains will arrive on time, as laid out in the timetable.
	I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman said about the timetable. There are many competing demands. The good residents of Eastbourne demand faster trains to London with fewer stops, and, as he said, there is a demand for better services for a number of stations in his constituency. There must be a balance that can meet those requirements.
	Many of the characteristics of today's railway tables are a feature of railway history. Large towns such as Bexhill are an example. Bexhill is located on a line that was originally built as a local route to connect the coastal towns of Kent and East Sussex, rather than as a fast route to London. As a result, it takes some 110 minutes to travel from Bexhill to Victoria. Battle, which is a much smaller town in relative terms and is barely five miles away, is located on a direct line to London Bridge, and the journey time is just 70 minutes.
	One of the main problems associated with the specification of faster journey times is the negative impact that they have on the network capacity. Capacity is most effectively used when all trains on the route have identical performance characteristics. Unfortunately, that does not happen, because, as I have said, there are many competing demands. The Brighton main line is a perfect example, because it is used to satisfy many requirements. There is a strong demand for express trains to such places as Gatwick airport and Brighton, but there is also a requirement to serve quieter stations such as Balcombe and Wivelsfield and the various divergent routes: East Grinstead, Redhill, Arun Valley, and the east and west coastways. All those use different rolling stock with their own particular characteristics. The combination means that no trains, even Gatwick Express trains, can be timetabled in a way that will exploit the full potential of modern high-performance rolling stock.
	Looking at the timetable that exists today, I think it remarkable that such great achievements have been made. I recognise that problems have been caused by the introduction of the 14 December timetable, about which I shall say more later. However, let me list some of the problems with which the train planners must grapple. There is the dedicated use of the Gatwick Express trains on platforms 13 and 14 at Victoria. There is the restrictive layout of approaches to London Bridge. There are the conflicting moves at the various flat junctions such as Battersea Park, Streatham Common and Gloucester Road, and the convergence of multiple suburban routes in the Croydon area. There is also the two-track railway between Three Bridges and Brighton.
	The new timetable is fragile and vulnerable. While I recognise that its introduction on 14 December led to a further deterioration in the performance measurement that we normally use, that was partly due to failures in infrastructure. Rolling stock was also a problem, as was severe weather in one of the periods, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will remember. But the public performance measure for March was 91 per cent., and the April figure was 94 per cent. I do not think that that indicates a failing timetable.
	The timetable that has been introduced was consulted on for three years. It was not imposed. Overall, there has been a 10 per cent. increase in the number of seats available during the peak period between Victoria and Brighton. As I think the hon. Gentleman recognised, a compromise had to be reached in terms of the non-stop Gatwick Express to the capital, but also in the introduction of more seats for commuters on the Brighton main line. As for the number of complaints received by Southern trains, according to figures from the company, the number of complaints about timetable issues has been only about 5 per cent. of the total number.
	I recognise that there are rolling-stock issues, but I am pleased to be able to inform the House that 15 of the 17 units of the class 442s are now in service and are being utilised on the routes. There have also been staff training issues, which have now been addressed, and that, too, will help in the provision of the service. In the last three weeks, in recognition of issues raised by Members and others, some adjustment has been made to create an additional Brighton to London Bridge service and to amend the timings of nine services to improve the resilience of the timetable.
	I will investigate the issue of the cutback from eight-carriage to four-carriage cars and write to the hon. Gentleman, because that should not be the case. I have said that the timetable was not imposed.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.